Halo: The Incursion
by Gobbles the Turkey
Summary: With the UNSC-Covenant war over the ruined remains of the UNSC face war with an unknown enemy. Their best hope in adverting a war is sending an advanced stealth warship, the first and only of its kind. The Incursion has begun.
1. Prologue UNSC

Chapter One

Proxima Centauri is a relatively small red dwarf star located only 4.2 light years from Earth. This star is special to the people of Earth due to it being not only the closest to us, but also because it was the first location out of our solar system that we had traveled too. It was due to the proximity to Earth that it was chosen as one of the locations to set up a SS Station, or Slipspace Sensor Station.

Created after the end of the Human-Covenant War, the SS Station was designed to detect forces traveling to Earth and her colonies. Using a highly advanced slipspace engine as a core it maintains an open slipspace rupture for minutes, instead of seconds, well not actually entering it at all. This allows the advanced sensor package on the station itself to gather clearer reading on the activities in slipspace.

The massive power requirements of the such a structure are provided by vast arrays of solar panels, as the materials required to create the reactors that ships use to generate power are in extremely short supply. The reading given by the station is only a slightly bit above that of normal background static. They cannot detect how many ships are in slipspace, nor what class they are. All they can do is tell when a ship is in slipspace. By comparing this to the expected ships arrivals on Earth they can determine when unauthorized ships are approaching.

Generally, this system can give the defense fleet approximately twenty-four hours of advanced warning. Time that is crucial in charging ship mounted MAC weapons and preparing the crews for combat. Due to this it has become possible to destroy Loyalist ships before their shields become operational, allowing the small surviving fleet guarding Earth to stop all but the most dedicated attacks upon Earth.

…

Proxima Centauri: January 15th 2557

"Captain, the science team is reporting green lights on all systems and they are requesting permission to begin the test sequence," the communications officer said.

"Establish an orbit around the station five kilometers away, then tell them they have the go ahead," responded the Captain, "I want a status report once it's online."

The UNSC Frigate _Incursion _had been in system for almost two weeks supervising the construction of the SS Station _Early bird_. The Captain of the ship, David Anderson, wasn't unhappy with the assignment, but he would rather be part of the defense force around Earth. He was a soldier through and through and being stuck in as ship with a skeleton crew of actual military personal and a large group of scientist was not his idea of a good time.

Anderson himself was almost forty years old with very short black hair. He had also served in the war for over fifteen years. Seeing planet after plant destroyed or 'Glassed' as it became known as.

"Orbit established Captain, sending authorization," said the officer, "They receive and are beginning tests, they estimate they should be fully online in less then in four hours."

"Good, contact me at the first check in," replied Anderson, before beginning the long trek through the ship towards the mess hall, admiring the construction efforts put into the ship.

Being less then a month old the ship was still lacking any of the normal wear and tear that a military ship would be expected to have.

The _Incursion _was one of only five ships constructed after the war. Each one of the five is built as a test ship, blending advanced UNSC technology with reversed engineered Covenant technology. After the war the Elites had refused to share any of their technology, leaving only what could be developed ourselves. Unfortunately this left us with technology based for ground combat, as no Covenant ship captured ever remained intact for long.

In practical terms this meant that advanced alien systems are just larger versions of their ground based counterparts. The _Incursion_ was built to be a stealth frigate. Equipped with Photo Reactive plating and having large amounts of the Titanium A armor being replaced with depleted uranium to help contain other unwanted emissions from the ship that could allow it to be detected. But the main part of the stealth systems is a enlarged and stripped down Covenant Cloaking Field Generator.

When all of the available stealth systems are online the ship becomes completely undetectable to all but the most advanced of Covenant ships. But the drawback to this is that much of the reactors power has to be devoted to maintaining the Cloaking Generator, leaving only enough power for basic systems.

Along with the cloaking capabilities the ship is also equipped with a standard MAC weapon, capable of accelerating a 300 pound slug to 40% of the speed of light, capable of transferring massive amounts of kinetic energy into the target. The archer missile pods remained relatively unchanged, with the exception of being reduced in numbers to make room for the internal electronic components required to achieve the cloak.

The only non-standard weapons installed onto the experimental frigate are the 100mm Pulse Lasers that replaced the 50mm Auto-Cannons on the normal frigate.

The first weapon grade laser was the iconic 'Spartan Laser' created for ground based operations. The major drawback was the large power requirements, causing the portable weapons to have a very limited operational capacity as it would run its capacitor dry in five shots or less. But being attached to a much larger source of power even the scaled up version can fire many hundreds of time before having the focusing lenses be replaced.

The only reason this ship was assigned this mission, instead of being in the war against the remaining loyalists, was because once the station was online it was to direct its sensors towards the cloaked _Incursion _to test its effectiveness against the most advanced man made sensors.

…

Proxima Centauri: SS Station _Early Bird_

"Solar collection panels working within expected margin, capacitor charge at 40% and rising," said the scientist, "Containment systems online, Shaw-Fujikawa generator primed."

"Primary sensors beginning start-up sequences, capacitor charge holding at 80%," replied another.

"Excellent, prepare to bring the generator online and shutdown the artificial gravity plates," the head scientist said.

Of the many different sensors in the station one of the most important was the gravimetric sensor. It could detect the gravitational field being put out by a an object weighting just a few kilograms. It had already been set up to compensate for the mass of the station itself and the relative area around it. But gravity plates had a tendency to fluctuate, something thing normal matter did not, and this could not be consistently accounted for.

"Shutting down plates, everyone hold onto something," said a scientist.

Being designed with low gravity in mind the station was equipped with multiple metal bar around the walls to help move around, along with ones near the control panels so workers could hold themselves in place.

"Beginning slipspace rupture formation," called a scientist.

Inside the containment chamber, thousands of micro black holes were being formed and destroyed via Hawking Radiation emission, creating a literal rip in space. Normally, it is at this point that a ship would begin to pass through the rip, but because of the functionality of the station itself the rip is instead maintained in real space.

"Rupture is open and containment is holding, beginning sensor tests for consistency of background static," there was a slight pause, "Gravimetric sensors are fluctuating," said another scientist, "Sensors detect fluctuation to be arising from outside the rupture."

"Confirm shutdown of gravity plates and request the _Incursion _to move at least 25 kilometers away from the station. Reorient sensors to external scanning and search for anomalies," replied the lead scientist, "Might just be a rouge comet."

"Sir, reading are coming from the 5th planet's moon. It's magnetic and gravimetric signature is inconsistent with expectations for a moon of its class," called the other scientist.

"Contact the_ Incursion_ and send all data we have on the moon to them," replied the lead scientist, "Lets just work on getting all secondary systems online for now."

…

Proxima Centauri: _Incursion_

"Captain to the bridge, repeat captain to the bridge," came the call over the intercom, loud enough to cause vibrations to rack through the ship.

Getting up, Anderson picked up the bowl containing his 'breakfast' and began to move over to the food recyclers. After the war supplies were extremely scarce. Food being sent to ships was little more then a flavourless nutrient paste. Recycling systems for both food and water had been installed on many of the ships in order to save as much as possible.

'I don't see how this could be reprocessed into food when it wasn't to begin with,' he though to himself as the greyish brown slop slowly dropped out of the bowl. Grimacing at the thought of that he left the mess to begin the trek back to bridge.

Due to the odd shape of the non human parts of the ship, many of the once strait hallways in the original designs of a frigate class ship had been replaced with curving hallways to fit around the smooth architecture commonly associated with Covenant technology. Externally the ship retained the look of a standard UNSC frigate in order to cause confusion in the ranks of the enemies as a single first generation frigate wouldn't pose a threat to even the smallest Loyalist ship.

Due to this it was theorized that a single frigate would be overlooked in favor of targeting larger ships that are known to pose more of a threat to Loyalist ships, allowing the ship to get in close as the Pulse Lasers required relatively short range to operate. This trade off was deemed acceptable due to the fact that a full broadside from the turrets have the ability to take down shields faster then even MAC rounds. Though they are much less effective against the hull itself.

Reaching the elevator he quickly placed his palm upon the reader, it responded by giving him a small beep in acceptance. Quickly prioritizing the captain over other crew members the elevator stopped in the middle of moving between floors and begin to rise to the current floor of the captain. A muted ping wall all that was heard as the doors opened revealing a man leaning against the wall wearing loose fitting military slacks that were oddly fitting with his short brown hair and brown eyes.

"Captain," said the man, giving a lazy salute, "Are they ready to being the tests already?" he inquired.

"No, the station shouldn't be online for another hour at least," said the captain, "Although they could just be having some problems that they need our assistance for."

"Well, if something comes up, and you need it destroyed, you know who to call," replied the man, who Anderson recognized as John Sheppard, "Nothing better to do out here."

"You applied for posting on a stealth ship, and what? Did you expect it to be full of action?" said Anderson.

"I expected, captain, to be dropped behind the front lines onto some Loyalist planets." he replied.

He didn't blame him, Sheppard had lost his planet to the Covenant during the high point of the war. Four years later he joined the marines to help fight back. After only two deployments he applied for the ODST branch. Six months later, he had his first drop onto a planet already under heavy attack. He spent the next ten years in and out of combat until the end of the war. Afterward he remained in the ODST to be part of the defence fleet against the loyalist raids that still occurred now and again.

"You know we don't have the ships or the manpower to go on the offensive," he said, "We can barely defend ourselves at this point."

A soft ding rang as the doors to the elevator opened once again to the hive of activity that was the bridge of the ship. People moving from station to station making sure that all systems were online and ready for action if need be. Seeing the captain the marine at the door moved into a crisp salute.

Moving out of the elevator he looked back towards Sheppard, "Don't worry, you'll get some action. Just try to be patient until then."

The closing of the elevator doors was the only thing that prevented Sheppard from making a smart comment back, but as it was the doors simply closed as it resumed its decent back towards its original destination.

Moving quickly through the open floor space Anderson reached the main holographic table currently displaying the avatar of the ships A.I. Asya. Her avatar was made with long white hair going almost halfway down her back, and wearing a Japanese style kimono embroidered with small flowers around it.

"Captain," she called in greeting.

"Asya," he replied, "What's going on?"

"We have a report from the station. They are detecting abnormal gravitational readings that are throwing off their initial scans of slipspace. They reoriented the scanners outward under the hypothesis that there was an comet that had come back around the sun and was throwing them off," she stated, "But what they found was a fluctuating gravitational field around the 5th planet in the system's moon."

"What does this mean for us?" the captain replied.

"A moon consists of a set amount of mass the fluctuates minimally with impacts," she said, "But to be continually fluctuating would indicate artificial constructs in the area."

"Covenant?" he asked.

"Unknown, the field is larger then any known anti gravity field produced by Loyalist or Elite ships," she responded.

"Activate stealth systems and bring us towards the object," he called, "Send a request to the station to continue scanning the object, lets see if we cant get some more info."

"Stealth systems online and running at 95% efficiency, well within expected margin of error," she said, "Though I must remind you that the stealth systems are untested captain, we have no idea whether or not it would work in a real world situation," she said to him.

"Yes, but we don't have any other options," he replied, "If this some new Loyalist warship we don't have the weapons to fight a ship of that size. And being this close to earth we can't exactly leave it."

"True, should I send a report back to earth?" she asked.

"Yes, they should know just in case it is an attack," he replied, "Distance to the object?"

"Twenty thousand kilometers and closing," she said, "Coming around the planet now. We should have visual in 2.54 seconds."

Slowly the holotable changed from Asya's avatar to that of the moon and area around it. Only to see the space empty, the moon barren and cracking.

"Sir, the SS Station _Early Bird_ is reporting a rise in gravimetric readings as we approach," she said, "Scanners show massive plate activity."

The moon itself looked as if it was about to shake itself apart. Large sections of the surface cracked and shifted breaking apart from the position it had held for thousands of years as massive amounts of gravitational forces worked to tear the moon apart.

"Captain, our ships gravimetric sensors are picking up the forces now!" she said with a hint of urgency, "Recommend we move away at top speed now!"

"The moon has been giving off those reading for the last little while, why should we move away now?" he inquired.

"Our own gravimetric sensor can only detect the forces put off by stars or large gas giants, and for us to get readings off the moon now means something is going on. This is enough to confirm this is due to artificial intervention," she replied.

"Drop the cloaking now!" the caption roared, " Move us away at top speed!" He was quite sure that something with the power to rip a moon apart could remove his ship from existence in seconds, if it turned out to be hostile.

"Reports from the _Early Bird _station have reading above that of the star in the system!" she called, worry slipping into her voice.

The moon itself, having taken all the forces it could, finally gave out exploding outward into space. The massive debris cloud expending rapidly outward in all directions obscuring sight into the mass and raining destruction onto the planet below.

"Debris cloud will overtake us in less then thirty seconds," said Asya.

"Reorient the ship so the more armored sections face the explosion!" yelled Anderson, trying to be heard over the sounds coming from all over the bridge as stations beeped in hopes of having the attention of a person focused upon them.

The ship swung around, metal groaning attempting to absorb the large amount of residual inertia, facing towards the expanding cloud as it raced towards the ship.

"Contact in five seconds!" Asya yelled, "Brace for impact!"

The ship shook violently as it was pelted with thousands of rock shards, each one like a bullet smashing into the ship. Paint was scraped off and reactive plating was dented and cracked. But only fifteen seconds after the barrage started had it stopped. Leaving a worn ship floating in space

Inside the ship the shock wave had thrown anyone who was standing onto the ground. Anderson himself held onto the holotable in an attempt to avoid being thrown around. His grip held only for a few seconds before he too was thrown to the ground. Each second felt like hours to the few crew members on the ship as the integrity threatened to give and expose them to the cold vacuum of space.

Getting up, Anderson looked around to see the bridge filling with smoke.

"Damage report, Asya?" he asked, hoping the main computer banks were still online.

"Mostly superficial captain, all core systems still online and working at or above 90% capacity. Forward pulse lasers turrets are jammed and unable to swivel more then thirty degrees in any given direction. Photo reactive plating all along the front of the ship is inoperable, it is unlikely that they can be fixed and will need to be replaced," she stated, "Many crew members are suffering from light to moderate wounds from the shock wave. All in all we got off easy."

"What about the station?" he asked.

"It was shielded from the wave by the planet, its completely unharmed," she replied.

"Any idea what caused this in the first place?" he inquired.

"Dust cloud is still dispersing so we cant get a visual, but the readings are stronger then ever," she replied, pausing for a few seconds, "Cloud is cleared enough for the scanners to pierce, bringing up the image now."

Slowly the holotable's display zoomed into the debris field to settle on a large object shaped like an active Energy Sword. Blackish blue energy pulsing softly in the 'handle' area. The entire thing was almost five dozen kilometres long and pushed all the debris around it way with each rotation of the 'Gyroscope' like object.

"Asya," Anderson said, then paused admiring the object, "What am I looking at?"

"I don't know captain," she said, "I really don't know."

"Send a copy of all of the reading we have recorded up unto this point back to Earth, see if we cant get some extra support down here," he asked.

"Yes sir," she replied.

…

Proxima Centauri: Four Days Later

Only hours after High Command had reviewed the report send by the _Incursion _had they decided to send a small task force to the system to examine the alien object. In total the task force consisted of one first generation frigate, the _Memory, _one prowler, the _Blackbird_ and two support ships. One as a science vessel to work in tandem with the scientists still on the SS Station _Early Bird_ to find out what the object is. The second is a logistics ship to help perform some field repairs on the _Incursion _and to bring extra engineers to be stationed to the ship long term_. _Even with the extra member the ship was still understaffed, there simply weren't enough trained personal to man new was decided to not recall the damaged ship as only its stealth systems were damaged beyond field repair and it still had significant combat potential.

The small taskforce represented a large portion of the ships available for operations outside of defences of UNSC space. The only reason ships were being sent at all was due to the proximity to Earth and the potential that it could represent a new unknown alien race. And with previous experiences in that area, potentially bring a new war upon them.

…

Proxima Centauri: The _Incursion_

Arriving on the bridge Anderson immediately moved towards his normal spot at holotable, hoping to hear good news about the repair work on his ship.

"Good morning Captain," Asya greeted, "Have a good sleep?"

"I don't see how it could be morning in space, Asya," he said, "Anyway, how are the repairs progressing?"

"Forward Pulse Laser turrets have had their jams cleared and scratched focusing lens replaced, 75% of the damaged Photo Reactive plating has been replaced but that's all that can be as high command has no more to use," she stated, "The other plates have been repaired as much as possible. At present our stealth systems are operation at 80% of expected capacity."

"Better then nothing I suppose," he sighed, "Anyway, have they found anything out about the object?"

"No, either that or they just aren't saying anything," she said, "And you know what they say about ONI."

ONI or Office of Naval Intelligence is a branch of the navy that operates directly under HIGHCOM or High Command. Agents of ONI are known as known as 'Spooks' due to their tendency to work behind peoples backs and be general refusal to share information with the other branches of the navy. ONI is also in control of the navy's 'Prowler' fleet.

Prowlers are UNSC stealth recon ships that were used for tracking Covenant movement during the war. ONI itself had a large stake in the _Incursion _as it was the next generation of stealth ship, capable of taking an active part in a battle instead of hiding of to the side after placing some HAVOC tactical nukes in space.

"Don't forget, I did work with them for over a decade," he said, "And yes, right now they could be searching through thousands of years of records from an highly advanced alien civilization, and still tell us they are as baffled as us."

Even though he had worked for ONI he never liked their secretive ways. He did it to help fight the Covenant. Over the course of the next ten years later he had seen to many of his brothers and sisters die in combat well he stayed off to the side, undetected by the hostile ships. That was why he had himself reassigned to a frigate for the last five years of the war. It was due to his experience in both stealth ships and frigates that he was chosen to command the _Incursion_.

Silence reigned over the bridge of the ship as Anderson looked out the window at the unknown object. The gyrating object in the 'handle' was almost mesmerizing. But the silence was quickly shattered.

"Captain, power reading in the object are rising," she said, "The _Memory _and the_ Early Bird_ confirm."

"What about the _Blackbird_? Technically they have lead on this," he asked' "How ever much sense that makes," he added quietly.

"They want us to move away and reorient towards the object just in case," she said, "The support ships are jumping away. May I recommend that we begin charging weapons?" she added.

"Agreed, though I'm not sure if our weapons could destroy that thing even if we wanted too," he said, "Though a NOVA mig…" he began to say before being cut off.

"Twelve objects have just appeared near the object Captain," she said, her voice keeping the same clam tone it always has, "Visuals coming in now."

Once again the holotable changed to show the same unidentified object as before, but this time the twelve new objects were shown in orbit around it. Each one highlighted in yellow to signify it as an unknown. Zooming on the objects it became increasingly clear as to what they were. Ships, many covered in easily recognisable turreted weapons. But what surprised him the most was the size of them. Eight of the ships were the size of Longsword fighters and the other four were less then the 8th the size of his frigate. None of the four ships was big enough to hold even one of the 'fighters' so it was unlikely they that they were, in fact, fighters.

"Captain, ships are rearranging locations. Extremely small ones up front and small ones in the back," stated Asya, mirroring his scepticism about the ships size, "The _Blackbird _relaying a message for us to broadcast out."

Using a second ship to relays messages was common practice for a Prowler. Even the best stealth systems wont hold up if you constantly send out large amount's of electromagnetic radiation.

"Relay the message and inform the _Memory_ to orient towards one of the larger targets," he said, "At the first signs of hostile actions open fire, don't wait for confirmation, relay to the _Memory_ and have the _Blackbird_ confirm."

"_Blackbird _confirms, continuing with action," she replied, "I'm detecting a build up of an unknown energy around the unknown ship's hulls, it is possible that the ships are equipped with a unknown shield and are currently powering them up."

"Bring the Pulse Laser online and lock all targets. Powering shields isn't a completely hostile action," he said.

"The _Memory_ is orienting its Auto Cannons towards the unknown contacts," she said.

Auto Cannons are weapons installed on nearly all UNSC ships with the exception of some of the experimental ship's. At their core they are simply giant guns in space. Guns that fire over a ten 50mm explosive rounds a second. Unlike all the other weapons built onto UNSC ships these turrets are not built for engaging other large ships, but instead for destroying smaller fighters and intercepting missiles.

"The four larger unknowns are launching what I believe are their fighters," called Asya, "Or at leas…"

It was at this point that the ship shook lightly in recoil of the MAC being fired in response to enemy beginning to attack. It took less then one second for the advanced systems to register the hostile act by the, now hostile, unknown ships as it began to fire upon the _Memory_ with an unknown weapon. And further half second to fire the main weapon.

It took less then a thousandth of a second for the three hundred pound tungsten slug to reach its target. To it's credit the shields used by these people held up valiantly against the round, managing to hold it off for a full quarter second before giving way and allowing the object to continue on its path towards the ship. Ship based MAC weapons have the capability of doing tremendous damage to even the largest of Covenant ship's once the shields are down, so the effect against a target so small was simply stunning. As the round impacted the hull it began to flatten out in order to allow the largest amount of energy transfer before the round passed out the other side, but even the small fraction of the energy that had been used to destroy the ship had been more then enough. Less then a second after the ship had fired had it's target been completely eliminated. Not a single chunk remaining was over the size of a table, the ship being having been utterly ripped to shreds.

"Target destroyed Captain," said Asya, voice devoid of all emotion, "The _Memory_ confirms destruction of their target."

"What happened?" he asked, "I mean what did they do."

"Sensors detected projectiles being launched from the four larger targets," she replied, "Weapon fire consistent to that of mass accelerators, not unlike that of the MAC, but on a much smaller scale," she explained, "The two remaining larger ships are holding position and focusing fire upon the _Memory_ all other ships are moving towards at them at high speeds."

"Lock onto one of the remaining large ships and have the _Memory_ target the other, move us towards the _Memory_ and have our Pulse Lasers focus on the smallest ships first" he ordered, "Target the small ship's with the archer missiles."

"Yes sir, target locked and MAC firing," she said as another shutter went through the ship. The overview showed both of the larger ships being destroyed in the same fashion as the first two. "The other ships have began to open fire upon the _Memory_. They launching archer missiles."

Archer Missiles are also standard armament issued to all UNSC ships. Standard ship to ship missiles carrying a powerful explosive core capable of doing substantial amounts of damage to unshielded targets. Unfortunately Covenant point defence systems are capable of destroying large amounts of missiles before they can get close enough to do any damage. The solution to this was relatively simple, launch more missiles.

Frigate class ships have thirty missile pods holding forty missiles each. So even a small group of frigates are capable of launching hundreds of missiles at a time in an attempt to overwhelm the point defenses of enemy ships. Unfortunately, between the ten of them, the overlapping fields of the hostile ship's point defenses were able to effectively destroy all incoming missiles.

"The _Memory _is reporting energy weapon fire," called Asya, "Scanners show the energy weapons hitting the _Memory_ are the same as those that shot down the missiles."

"Launch archer missiles against the larger ones, lets see if we cant distract their energy weapons," he replied, "What about the MAC?"

"Enemy ships are currently too close and moving too quick, we cant orient the ship fast enough to hit them," she said, "Hostile ships are orbiting the _Memory_ at a distance of less then five hundred meters."

"How are their Auto Cannons holding up?" he asked, "And how long before we are in pulse laser range."

"Auto Cannons are having minimal effect, the ships are too close and moving to fast for them to track their targets effectively," she replied, "Sixty second till we are within range for our Pulse Lasers. Ships are firing missiles."

To the two foot thick Titanium A armor that first generation frigates are quipped with, the small mass accelerator weapons, and, relatively, weak energy weapons were nothing more then pinpricks. Obviously built for engaging other ships of their size they were woefully equipped for attacking a ship the size of a frigate.

"Auto Cannons only managed to intercept three of the four missiles!" she called," Impact on the _Memory_ in five seconds!"

Oddly, the missiles employed by these hostiles didn't seem to explode on impact, instead there was a small blackish blue field that engulfed the missile and the area around it. The result of which was devastating. Large portions of the armor in the area simply ripped itself to pieces, bending and shaking even after being separated by from the ship.

"Captain, I'm picking up large gravimetric disruptions surrounding the impact site," she said, "They are using gravity as a weapon, tricky. We are entering Pulse Laser range."

"Target the ship's known to carry missiles first, I don't think the _Memory_ can take many more of those," he said, "Prioritize ship's that break off and move towards us. We wont be helping them much if we end up in the same position."

The ship's orbiting the _Memory_ had been doing damage to it with near impunity. Their defenses could stop all missiles, their ships knew to avoid the front of the ship to avoid the MAC weapon, and they moved to fast for their Auto Cannons to hit them. But being a few kilometers away the _Incursion_ could hit the orbiting ships with near perfect accuracy, with only ships behind the _Memory_ or directly in front of it being safe from fire.

"Shields on the hostile ship's seem unable to affect out pulse lasers Captain," commented Asya. It was true, the lasers seemed to simply cut into the ships, as if the shields didn't exist at all, dropping many of them in as little as two shots.

"Four ships confirmed destroyed," she said, "Hostiles are launching more missiles. Over ten confirmed launches."

Ten missiles, each one able to do massive damage to ships armor. The effect done to the interior structure of the ship would be devastating. The best option was clear.

"Tell the _Memory_ to abandon ship and set their reactor to overload once escape pods reach safe distance," he said solemnly, "Once 50% of the pods have launched begin to fire at all ships, regardless of collateral damage."

Time seemed to slow to the crew of the _Memory_ as they raced to get off the ship before the impact. The ODST on board escaping by using their HEV pods as life boats. But they had less then twenty seconds until impact. Only four escape pods and the HEV's had managed to escaped before impact.

If it wasn't for the peoples lives being lost, the effect could almost be called beautiful. Large flashes of blackish blue light filled the space around the _Memory_ as it bent and distorted with the massive tidal forces that worked to rip it apart. Once the light had cleared the ship was surprisingly still there. Or a least most of it was. Large portions of the ship were simply ripped out and what was remaining was bending and twisting along the entire length of the hull, threatening to give out and finally fall to pieces. But even during this a few escape pods could be seen exiting the ship.

"Sir, hostile ships are retreating towards the unknown object, total surviving force is five of their medium ships and three small 'fighters'. What are your orders?" she asked.

"Bring us towards the wreckage and begin picking up escape pods, but first, target retreating ships," he said, "Fire MAC when ready."

"Firing," she said.

These ships, being much smaller then the largest of the hostiles, simply stop existing. Small clouds of dust being all that remained.

"Ship destroyed, others are at the object," she said, " Picking up a small burst of energy being directed towards it."

As suddenly as they arrived the ships left. Disappearing in an all too familiar flash of blackish blue light. Leaving space around the object, with it just sitting there, remaining as if nothing had happened at all.

"All hostile ships have evacuated. The _Blackbird_ is taking off its stealth systems," she explained, "The _Blackbird_ says our order are to rescue survivors of the _Memory_ and then to hold position with weapons ready. They are going to return to Earth to pick up supplies and alert HIGHCOM of this.

"Fine, bring us around and set a course towards the closest escape pod," he commanded.

"Already done," she replied, as the ship began to move off to help any survivors from the battle.

…

Earth: HIGHCOM Two Hours Later

"Welcome everyone," said the first person, "I trust you all know why we are here?" he inquired.

"Unfortunately, I'm sure we all do," replied the second, "But the question isn't why we are here, its what we are going to do about it."

"We don't have many options," said the third, "We can't fight a war with these people, we can hardly defend ourselves as it is."

"We can't ignore it for the same reason," said the fourth, "We don't know anything about these people. They could have fleets of ship's much more powerful then the ones we have seen."

"Agreed," replied the third, "But what does that leave us with?"

"We could simply destroy the object. They appeared to use it to move at FTL speeds," suggested the first person, "Without it they simply couldn't send any more ship's."

"The science team has reported that the structure is made of some unknown material," said the second, "We aren't even sure we could get rid of it if we wanted too."

"Surely a NOVA Bomb could disable it at least," replied the forth, " They are known for cracking planet's," he exclaimed.

"NOVA Bomb's are in extremely short supply, we couldn't afford to use one in a hope that it would do the job," said a fifth man, "And besides we don't even know why they attacked. We might have just spooked them."

"I suppose that that could be true," replied the third, "Maybe we should send a ship to investigate."

"We have no idea what's on the other side of the object, or even if we could use it if we wanted too," said the second.

"The ONI Prowler _Blackbird_ and the Prototype Frigate _Incursion_ both detected a signal sent to the object that appeared to activate it," said the fifth, " Its possible that we could send a ship if we really needed too."

"We don't have many ships to spare," said the first, "Maybe a stealth ship? It could move around undetected and gather intelligence."

"We don't know what they might encounter on the other side," said the second, "They might need to have some fire power to defend themselves."

"All that leaves is the _Incursion _itself," said the first, "But its not in top condition, it would require weeks to fix it, assuming we even had the parts for it."

"None of our ships are in perfect shape," said the fifth, "We have ones on the front line who's MAC's cause more damage to the ship itself then the enemy."

"It's not even fully manned," added the second.

"No, but if we merge the survivors from the _Memory_ into the crew of the _Incursion_ it should be at a full complement. Many of the systems are the same as that in a frigate and all the specialised systems have operators stationed on the ship already," said the fifth.

"OK, even if that would work that doesn't help the fact that they could send an army through," said the forth.

"HAVOC Space mines, we could just some up in the area around the object on a proximity fuse. Then we simply use the SS Station in the area to keep tabs on it," said the third.

"This might just work," replied the first, "So there are three main objective for this mission. One, find the reason why we were attacked. Two, find out fleet positions and strength. And third, to gain insight into their technologies weakness's and strengths, in case this does result in a war."

"They would also have to prevent our technology from falling into their hands at all costs," said the fifth.

"Agreed, we will send the _Blackbird_ back with the HAVOC Mines to set up the field," said the third one, "We should also send them with some Shiva's for the _Incursion_."

"If we are all in agreement," said the first one, looking around for signs of protest. Seeing none he continued, "Then the _Blackbird_ will be prepped and ready when it returns."

With that the meeting was over and each member left the room one by one, leaving only the first man.

"The _Incursion_, eh, lets see if it lives up to it's name," he muttered to himself.

…

Proxima Centauri: The _Incursion_ Two Days later

"That's the last of the supplies from the _Blackbird_," said Asya, "Three Shiva class nuclear warheads, they aren't skimping on the weaponry this time are they."

"They want us to, quite literally, charge blindly into what is most likely enemy territory with a crew who's trained to operate a different ship to our own." Anderson said, " Anything less then a few nukes and I would be thinking they don't care if we return."

"We don't have much time to go over the crew that survived from the _Memory_, we'll have to assign them to their positions quickly," she said.

"I trust you can do that in a mater of seconds?" he asked, "Or have you already done so and just want to show off?" he asked smiling lightly.

"Maybe," she said, smirking, "The _Blackbird _says the HAVOC Mines are being set to explode on a proximity fuse. So if we want to come back through we need to contact HIGHCOM first."

"I would expect nothing else," he said, "But if they are beginning to set up the mine field, then we should get going. Bring us towards the object, prepare to send the signal. We depart in twenty-four hours, to let the crew get in place."

"Moving into place now Captain," she said, "I'll start sending out the work orders to the crew members. This is going to be an interesting first mission."

"Trial by fire," he said, "The best kind."

Twenty-four hours later the _Incursion _sent the same signal to the object that the unknown ships had. The objects power levels began to rise before engulfing the ship in a, by this point, very familiar blackish blue light. The ship began to accelerate to unimaginable speeds, and that's when the first of many things went wrong.

…

Authors Note

So that ends the first chapter of my first story. I'm actually quite proud that I managed to finish what I started. Anyway, the point I'm trying to get across in this chapter is that UNSC didn't bounce back after the war. They didn't become some kind of super fighting force. Their forces are smashed, their population scattered, and supplies are divided unevenly because there is a lack of ships to transport them.

Also, in case it wasn't clear. I suck at making characters. So I'm asking anyone who's reading this to give me some suggestions, IE names, appearance, race, back-story's, personalities, profession and the such. The more detailed your person is the more likely it will be put in as a main character. They could even be a annoying political reporter who's to inquisitive for his/her own good. In fact that one would be extremely useful, so if anyone makes one using that I can almost guarantee them becoming a main character.

That leads to two more questions for the readers.

1. Should the Master Chief be put into this at some point?

This one would be dam hard to pull off without having it stop making any sense at all, but if you people would except Cortana being a hacking god I could pull it off.

2. I'm only planning on including two of the original alien team members who got onto the Normady in the original Mass Effect game, so what two if any?

I have no preference on this one all up to you guys.

In the morning I get to see how many people hate my attempts at writing :D


	2. Accidental Complications

Unknown to the crew of the _Incursion_, the 'object' was in fact a Mass Relay. Massive objects left behind by an unknown alien race that allows for near instantaneous travel across unimaginable distances by manipulating the relative space between two relays.

The material that allows the relay to function is known as 'Element Zero' to the races that have established themselves upon the technologies of relay builders. A material known to the UNCS as the elusive 'Dark Matter'. Dark matter it is thought to be responsible for all the mass that is unaccounted for in the universe.

When a ship wishes to pass through a relay it must simply approach and transmit the approximate mass of the ship to be send through. Be it a single ship or multiple. The 'Drift Factor" is a phenomena were ships do not consistently land near a relay but can 'Drift' into the area around it. This is not due to limitations in the relay itself, as thought by many races, but in fact due to the miscalculated mass given to the relay. The more accurate the mass given, the more accurate the jump.

Once the relay has a given mass it proceeds to create a 'tunnel' between the two relays, adding only enough power to send the ships to their destination. This is why when the _Incursion_ sent the 'signal' to the relay did it activate. They were simply sending a number, the mass of the unknown contacts, in a form that the relay recognizes. Unfortunately, even the combined mass of the unknowns still did not add up to what would be required to successfully 'jump' the _Incursion._

…

Unknown Space: The_ Incursion_

The _Incursion_ was violently thrown back out into real space, vast amounts of kinetic energy being transferred directly into the ship's hull from the massive deceleration as it slowed back down to sub light speeds. Residual energy from the 'tunnel' electrifying the hull and causing systems across the ship to shut down in an attempt to prevent catastrophic failure of key electronics. Ironically, the electrifying of the hull caused it to heat up, allowing it to bend slightly as the ship attempted to absorb the forward momentum, preventing it from being completely ripped apart.

"Damage report!" yelled Anderson, trying to be heard over the yelling filling the now manned bridge. Technically, a frigate with a A.I wouldn't need any kind of bridge crew beyond the Captain himself ,in order to give authorization for various actions. But having a crew had its advantages in specific situations, this one being the best example.

"Unknown damage, sir!" yelled a console operator to the side, "Main computer systems offline, redundant systems are all that's running right now!"

With the main computer banks offline, Asya, was effectively dead until it was repaired or reactivated, depending on the damage done.

"Get the pelican's into space now! For all we know we might be surrounded by hostiles, and I don't want to get caught not knowing what's out there!", said the Captain.

A 'Pelican" is the UNSC drop ship, built for ferrying people and supplies from one ground location to another, or from space to ground and vice versa. Normally the only space bound operations a Pelican would perform is transport from ship to ship. But as frigate class ships don't carry Longsword fighter they can be used as scouting ships in desperate situations.

"Alpha and Beta Pelicans launched, Charlie has not left the hanger," called a different operator.

"Equipment issues?" Anderson inquired.

"No sir, the pilot is having issues," he replied.

"Whatever we can deal with it later, now is not the time. Do we have visuals!" he called.

"Coming in now, sir," he said, "What the hell?" he added quietly.

An image of the ship appeared, showing only minor damage. But it was the space around the ship that was interesting, in the fact that nothing was there.

"Where are we?" some one said.

"Short range sensors are coming back online, lets see if we cant enlarge our field of vision," said the sensor operator, momentarily pausing, "Captain, we aren't detecting any stars within a one light year radius."

The image of the ship slowly shrunk as the view screen zoomed out farther, showing only more nothing. It was clear where they were. The interstellar void, the large expanse of empty space between star systems.

"Is it possible this is the location it was supposed to bring us too?" asked Anderson.

"Doubtful sir, their ships appeared next to a second object and were undamaged," said a different operator, "Based on the size of the ship's we encountered it is possible that it couldn't handle a ship this size."

'That would explain why their ships were so small,' though Anderson, 'But that doesn't help us now.'

"Have damage control teams begin repairs, and have a medic sent to the hangers to help the pilot of the third pelican," he ordered, "Prioritize the main computer banks, see if we cant get Asya back online."

"Sir, the pilots problems aren't medical," said an officer, "He simply refuses to pilot it."

"You're joking," asked Anderson, not believing what he was hearing.

"No sir, pilots name is Jeff Moreau, call sign 'Joker'," replied the officer.

"XO Pressly, you have the bridge," he said, "I'll deal with this myself," he said, before leaving the bridge to deal with this uncooperative pilot.

"Yes sir," replied Pressly, "I'll keep your spot warm," he said jokingly.

Pressly was the Executive Officer aboard the _Memory _before it was destroyed. He was extremely angry until after he learned he was being stationed on a advanced warship being given the mission to investigate the hostiles. It gave him plenty of opportunities for revenge along the way. He himself was almost fifty years old, with white hair in the few spots were he still had any.

Looking around, Pressly saw the many of the operators looking at him, "Carry on," he said, and the work immediately resumed.

…

The _Incursion_: Aft Hanger

"HELL NO," yelled Joker, "IM NOT FLYING THAT DAM THING."

Those were the first words Anderson heard when he entered the hanger. Being yelled by, who he assumed, was the problem pilot.

"IT'S DAM WELL INSULTING TO EXPECT ME TOO," he continued yelling, oblivious to the Captain entering.

"ATTENTION," Anderson yelled. Not something he normally liked to do, but it seemed like the only way to get his attention.

"WHAT," he yelled, immediately shutting up upon seeing the Captain. "Captain," he said saluting, obviously trying to keep what ever sense of professionalism he had left. "What can I do for you,?" he asked, grinning.

"You can tell me exactly why you refuse you pilot the pelican, and you can do it now," he said, not wanting to deal with his antics, any more then necessary.

"Well you see Captain," he paused, "Well, uh…."

"I'm waiting private," he said.

"That's it exactly!" he exclaimed, "I'm a PRIVATE for gods sake! Less then a week ago I was the head pilot onboard the _Memory__**. **_I can fly anything in the UNSC fleet and even most of the Covenant's fleet! And now you want me to fly a PELICAN. That's… that's just insulting!"

"No, what's insulting is your tone right now!" he said, voice raised, "I get that you don't like it, but your going to have to live with it. Pilots are in short supply so your going to have to do your job. Besides, we are currently scouting a new, space faring, species. Who knows, we might find some alien ship for you to fly."

That last part immediately grabbed Jokers attention. The though of being the first person to fly an entirely new kind of ship was too much to resist.

"Really?" he asked, "You would let me fly an alien space ship?"

"As you said," he responded, "You were the head pilot. Aside Asya, you're the best we have."

Anderson always believed in the phrase "You catch more fly's with honey then vinegar". He preferred to lead people by respect rather then fear. This way of viewing his command had kept him and his crew's alive up until this point.

"Yes Captain," he replied eagerly.

"If that's taken care of, I need you to help with the repair work. Go talk to the head of the Damage Control teams for instructions," he said.

His grin faded lightly at the prospect of doing work, but for this opportunity he was ready to suck it up and get to work.

"Yes Captain," he said, less eagerly then before.

"Good, I'll be returning to the bridge then," he said before departing, leaving Joker standing there fantasizing about flying some alien ships.

…

The _Incursion_: Outside the Ship

"Ok, that's it," said the first repairman, "The last plates finished."

The repairman really didn't like working with the new 'Photo Reactive Plating'. They were easy to break and extremely hard to repair due to the alien component's used in their construction. But with that finished he had only one more thing to fix. The long range broadcast nodes.

Normal means of communication, radio and point to point laser's, don't work for communication over long distances because these signals only move at light speed. Not even nearly the speeds required for communication from one star to another.

This is why the node works in tandem with the slipspace drives. By opening a microscopic slipspace rupture, then broadcasting a signal into it allows the communication to reach speeds of light years a second in real space. Well any communication system could technically receive signals from slipspace, it requires extremely advanced systems to send signals that will remain intact over long distances.

This is why it was a _very_ large problem when the repair team moved to the other section of the ship to find that it had been, literally, ripped in half by the extreme deceleration that the ship had experienced previously, with parts of it simply missing.

"Oh no…" said the second repair man, and with good reason, it was one of the only parts of the ship that couldn't be repaired, only replaced.

The _Incursion_: Bridge

Anderson was pleased. The repairs were going quickly and estimates put Asya being back online less in then an hour, and long range sensors were currently doing a broad scan of the surround space. With all going well they could be on their way in less then three hours.

"Captain, we have a report from the 2nd repair team," said the communications officer, "They say the long range communication node has been destroyed beyond repair."

Silence fell upon the bridge at that news, everyone knew what that meant. They couldn't send messages back to UNSC space. But the worst part was the problem with returning to UNSC space.

The orders for the _Incursion_, when it needed to return to UNSC space, were simple. Send prior notice to allow time to have the HAVOC mines be shutdown. Without this it was more likely that the defences would simply reduce them to radioactive ash.

"Are they sure its beyond repair?" Pressly asked, not wanting to accept that they were effectively stranded.

"They report parts of it having broken off the ship," he replied sighing, "There's no chance to fix it."

Minutes pasted in silence as the crew stood, or in some cases sat, in silence.

"It doesn't mater," Anderson said, "We will continue our mission as planned. We will find out why these people attacked us. And we WILL find a safe way home."

Slowly the people in the bridge resumed their normal activities, though with much less vigour then before.

…

The _Incursion_: One Hour Later

"Mainframe is ready to being reset sequences Captain," said the maintenance officer, "Shall we proceed?"

"Yes, the sooner Asya's back online the better," he responded.

"Super cooling systems online, beginning start up," called the operator, "Mainframe online, A.I. program running now."

Slowly the holotable display changed to show Asya's avatar developing from the bottom up. A crude, but effect, way of displaying the progress of the boot sequence. Once it finally finished compiling Asya's avatar there way a slight pause. Then she blinked, looking around briefly.

Anderson had though long and hard about the argument on AI's emotions. Some people though it was simply their programming, and others believed that they truly become self aware. He himself was somewhere in the middle of the two arguments.

"Captain?" said Asya, "How long was I out?"

Normally there would be no need for external input to inform the AI as it could simply look into the recorded logs of the ship. But because the mainframe was down, leaving only secondary systems, no logs were kept in order to save storage space.

"Approximately two hours," he answered, "And there have been some complications since then."

"Like?" asked Asya.

"The broadcast node was damaged beyond repair once we arrived," he said, "And we are currently situated in the interstellar void."

"Good to know you guys aren't entirely helpless without me," she said smirking.

"Did I ever say we weren't?" he replied.

"Good point," she said, "So, were do we start?"

"Long range sensors are already mapping the local area, if you could lend your skills to speeding up that process, it would be much appreciated," he asked.

"Sure, the scans are almost done already, it just needs to be compiled into a workable star chart," she said, "Give me a few moments."

With both the mainframe and the ship's AI online, creating a star chart out of the available data was simple, and in less then thirty seconds they had a fully viable, albeit short range, star chart.

"Captain, I'm not finding any of our usual navigational pulsars," she said, "We could be anywhere in the galaxy right now without knowing how that object works."

The chart itself only showed ten light-years in any given direction, with only three systems in that area.

"So, a one in three chance of landing in the proper system, assuming any of them were we want to be," noted Pressly, "How do we decide were to go?"

"Well, the third cluster has two planets in the habitable zone. It's possible some of them are in fact inhabited, and we could use them as starting point's for exploration into the space around them," commented Anderson.

"Captain, if I may," asked Asya, "If we assume that the object only moved us in a strait line then it's very possible that just continuing to travel in the same direction we were will lead us to the systems with a second object."

"Can you focus the long range sensors in that direction to search for a system?" asked Pressly, "Or do we simply hope we run into one along the way?"

"I already began scanning in that direction, and have in fact detected a system," she said before pausing, "The only problem is that its over sixty light-years away."

"So our options are either to hope that the nearest planet is inhabited, or to take a chance that our direction didn't change, and spend a week in slipspace too find out," said Anderson.

"It's also possible that neither would lead us to anything," added Pressly.

"Dammed if we do, dammed if we don't," remarked Anderson, sighing he said, "I say we continue moving forward, towards the distant system. Finding a second object may is our only way home, and thus, should be considered top priority."

"Hmm, it's a good point. I agree," said Pressly, "We need to prioritize finding a way back, even if we cant use it."

"Sarita, plot a course and enter slipspace when ready," he said, sighing it was going to be a long week.

"Yes Captain," she said, secretly pleased that her idea was chosen as the course of action.

It was decided to not equip the _Incursion_ with Cryo Sleep Pods, for multiple reasons. One, advances made in slipspace travel from the 'Doorway' on earth, leading to the ark, has allowed ships to travel longer distances in half the time. Two, the room required to fit enough for the entire crew would have severely limited cargo space and crew quarters for when they were not in Cryo Sleep.

Well this was a good idea tactically, it would lead to some very boring and very long stretches of uneventful time spent traveling from cluster to cluster, as trips could still take many weeks to complete.

…

The _Incursion_: Four Days Later

As predicted, the days of travel in slipspace had begun to get on he crew members nerves. Open fighting was uncommon, but having large arguments over the smallest of things were not. Two crew members had already been confined to their quarters' too cool off, all about an argument over a small amount of fresh fruit found in the cargo hold. But on this day, the fourth of the seven, did a very significant event occur.

It was an argument between the two ODST team leaders, one John Sheppard, originally posted to the _Incursion _and one Ashley Williams, team leader posted on the_ Memory_ before being transferred to the _Incursion_ after the destruction of aforementioned ship.

"I were here FIRST, therefore it belongs to me," yelled Sheppard, "Why is that so hard for you to understand!"

"It doesn't mater who was here first!" replied Ashley, "All that maters is who has the better the better skills, and between the two of us, that's ME!"

Ashley was a tall woman with brown eyes, and long black hair. Hair that was always kept in a bun to conform to strictly to military protocol. But if you could use any phrase to describe her, it would be 'Sticks to protocol' due to her no nonsense approach to life. If you omit her violent tendencies.

"If your team is so great then why did mine get assigned to an advanced stealth warship, and not yours!" he countered.

"Oh that's it!" she said, getting into a fighting stance, "Lets settle this once and for all!"

"Your on girly!" taunted Sheppard, getting into his own stance.

"Nock it off you two!" yelled one Kaidan Alenko, member of Sheppard's ODST team, moving between the two in an attempt to stop any fighting before it began.

"No!" yelled Sheppard, "We finish this now!"

"Then finish it without fighting!" he said, "There are better ways to solve your differences then hitting each other!"

"Oh, did you have something in mind?" asked Ashley, not dropping her stance.

"In fact, I do," said Kaidan, "Follow me."

…

The _Incursion_: Rec Room Ten Minutes Later

"Rules are simple, once your chips are gone, your out. Last man remaining wins.," said Kaidan, shuffling the cards as he spoke, "I'll deal."

It was decided to settle the argument in the most civilized manor possible, a game of Texas Hold'em.

"How can we be sure you wont rig it for your choice?" asked Ashley.

"I'm not going to rig it simply because I DON'T CARE" he said, raising his voice slightly as he spoke, " It's a dumb argument over a even dumber thing! Am I the only person who realises this?"

"Just deal," said Sheppard, eager to get started.

"Fine," he said, before dealing the cards, beginning the game.

The game went on for hour's, each person conserving their chip's refusing to give up any ground to the other team. Slowly a crowd began to form around the group, as it was the only form of entertainment to had on the ship. As time passed the people began to lose chips to either Sheppard or Ashley, as the two of them were leading the game. The people watching the game began to place their bets, on individual player, with Sheppard and Ashley being the favourites.

That was when the first player was eliminated. A man named Matvey Rolan, a man of Russian decent, part of Ashley's team. Cheers were heard from members of the crew who had been stationed onboard from the beginning of the ships existence, having gotten to know Sheppard and his team. Well the opposite was also true, Boo's being heard from crew members having been rescued from the _Memory_.

As time moved on, player after player was eliminated leaving only Sheppard and Ashley.

Both of them nearly equal pile of chip, and Sheppard wtich a smug grin on his face. Kaidan dealt the next hand.

'Three and a two, spades.' he though, 'I can work with this'

Eyeing Ashley, he slowly push a pile of chips forward totalling over ten thousand dollars, over half of his total available.

"I raise," he said, watching her face for any tell that might help him discern her hand. But to his dismay, her calm, collected image didn't falter.

"I'll call," she replied, pushing forward an equal amount of chips.

The flop was put down, a three of hearts, six of spades, and a five of diamonds.

'Excellent,' though Sheppard, grin not leaving his face, as to do so would be a bigger tell then leaving it, 'This could end right here'.

This time he only moved a pile of chips amounting to two thousand dollars in an attempt to bait Ashley into betting higher. It seemed to work, seeing as what she did next.

"All in," she said, pushing all the chips in front of her into the pile. Gasp's being heard from everyone watching the event.

Grinning the entire time, Sheppard also pushed his pile into the center, confident in his ability to win.

With both players all in the betting was over, the winner of this would be the winner of it all. So all that was left was to put down the remaining cards, then see who's hand was better. After the flop came the turn, a three of diamonds.

'I've got her now!' though Sheppard.

Then came the river the 5th and last card, a king of club's.

"That's it, show'em and lets get this stupid thing over with," said Kaidan.

Sheppard flipped his card's first, grinning like a mad man.

"Three of a kind," he declared. Looking to see the look of defeat in Ashley's face, much to his dismay it still retained the look of indifference it had since the beginning of the round.

Slowly Ashley moved her hands towards her cards, flipping them the first one to reveal a queen of hearts.

"Your going to have to do better then that," remarked Sheppard, grin still ever present on his face. But still she remained unresponsive to anything Sheppard did. Much to his annoyance.

Finally, she flipped the second card. A three of clubs. Sheppard's face immediately went blank, looking over the cards on the table.

'A draw?' he though, but that was when he remember the queen he had been mocking.

"Three of a kind, queen high," she said triumphantly, her stoic face finally breaking, "I win."

Seeing the look on Sheppard's face many of the watching stopped talking. All eyes were on him as they waited to see his reaction to the outcome.

"Well," he said, "You win fair and square, commander," the last part being added after a slight pause.

From the start the argument had been over who would become the leader of the ODST on the ship. Sheppard claimed it as his, he was here first. By his logic, this means it _is_ his. Well Ashley said she should be in command, because she could flat out do a better job at it.

"But remember," he said, grin returning to his face, "One mistake and ill be there to take it back," he said well putting his hand forward.

"You can try," she said, smiling as she shook his hand, "But then you would have to fight me for it."

The crowed cheered as it became obvious a fight wouldn't break out.

…

The_ Incursion_: Bridge, Three Days Later

"Captain," said Asya, "We are coming out of slipspace."

"Music to my ears Asya," replied Anderson.

The table changed to display the star system they were entering. One star, five planets and two small, relative to the planets, object's that was producing large gravity fields.

"Looks like we picked right Captain," she said, "Gravity fields match that of the first object."

"Good to know," added Pressly, "That we are a little less lost in space."

"Any activity in the area?" asked Anderson.

"There is a small group of ship orbiting the second planet," she replied, "There appears to be a large complex on the surface, next to what appears to be a city. It is likely a base of some kind."

"How many ship?" asked Pressly.

"Five of the medium size ships, and three of the larger sized ships. Due to the larger ships being known to carry fighters, I would estimate a total of seventeen ships of various sizes."

"It's less then before," said Anderson, "But I still don't want to risk a fight."

"Well, maybe we should," Pressly said, "If there are a larger number of military ships in orbit, then its possible it a military base. We could use some info from it."

"We can't be sure they don't have extra ships on the planet," said Anderson, "Not to mention the fact that once they get in close there's little we can do stop them from destroying us."

"What about the cloak?" asked Pressly, "If it works as advertised, and these people cant detect our ship, we could simply move into orbit and send an ODST team down to infiltrate the complex."

"It is possible, if they couldn't detect the _Blackbird_ then there is little chance they could detect us, even with out systems damaged," added Asya, "And we could use some more complete chart's of the area."

"We have no idea what kind of weapons these people use for ground combat, we could be sending out people to the slaughter," said Anderson, obviously not liking the plan at all, "Not to mention we don't have a clue how to read their language, or even what it looks like for that mater."

"All the more reason to go in," replied Asya, "If the team could establish a remote connection I could try to decode the language at the same time as finding some Intel."

"Not to mention," added Pressly, "That there is a good chance that this wont be the only time it comes down to a gun fight. And it might not be under any better circumstances. They could use some experience before the 'shit hit's the fan' as the saying goes."

"Fine," said Anderson, clearly seeing that he had been out played by the two, "Tell the ODST commander to report to the briefing room, we have an attack to plan."

…

The _Incursion_: Briefing Room, Twenty Minute's Later

Both Ashley and Sheppard sat in the briefing room waiting for Anderson to arrive. They had decided that Sheppard would, for at least the time being act as a sort of 'vice commander' to the ODST on the ship, and as such should be included in any plans.

Anderson noticed this immediately as he came into the room. He had, of course, heard of their little bet. He didn't mind, both were qualified to lead the ODST. So however they decided who would command was fine with him. Having the loser act as a commander made sense as they could still provide valuable input on any plans being made.

"I trust you both read over the files well you were waiting?" he asked, already knowing that they had.

"Yes," replied Ashley, "And we have already come up with our version of the plan."

This, on the other hand, surprised him. He knew both of them would act professional no mater who won, but he still expected some kind of hostility between them.

"Well then," he said, sitting down, "Lets hear it."

"Asya, can you bring up the pictures of the complex," she asked.

The floor itself flashed white, before dimming and forming into the shapes and objects that made up the complex. All the walls in the briefing room had the capability of displaying images, though the floor and wall being the most common. The roof only being used for displaying ships in their relative position to the _Incursion_ in space engagement replays. It was for this reason that the room was dubbed the 'Poor mans Holodeck' by some of the engineers onboard the ship.

"There are two main objective's as we see it," said Ashley, "First we need to get into the building itself, find a terminal or whatever they use in place of one, and find a way to link it to our computers."

"We also have to disable the AA Guns defending the complex, if we don't do this the pelicans would be shot down as they attempted to retrieve us from the planet," finished Sheppard, "So our plan is to go in as two teams."

"My team," started Ashley, "Will be disabling the AA Guns, well Sheppard and his team enter the complex."

"Assuming we don't run into many complications," said Sheppard, "We should be ready for extraction within two hours."

"The only problem is the pelican itself," added Ashley, "It isn't equipped for any kind the stealth actions. The moment we dock with the _Incursion _there's a high chance it's going to be lit up by enemy ships."

"You let us worry about that," Anderson said, standing, "The plan is sound, if not a bit vague, but seeing as you don't know what to expect down there I cant expect anymore. Prep your men, you drop within the hour.

…

Authors Note:

lightly shorter then the first chapter, I know but this will be made up for in the next chapter, I promise.

One review said that I might have gotten the scale of the mass effect ships wrong. My reasoning for my choices is simple. A Longsword Fighter is over 64 meters long. This is what many people don't know, they are actually huge ships seeing as a 747 Jetliner is only 76 meters long. Now from what I saw in the game, and this may open to interpretation, the Normandy (A frigate) was in no way bigger then a 747. Therefore nearly equal in size to a Longsword Fighter

And about his other point, yes the UNSC could still have large amount's of production plants and ship yards. But it would still take years to rebuild anything resembling a real fleet. And the UNSC in my story is smashed is because everyone else seems to make theirs, to quote an other reviewer, an "Unstoppable Juggernaut of Destruction".

As for Joker. Well, I just don't see the UNSC not having a cure to his disease.

To "Robo Reader 21". The mass effect wiki, in the 'Trans-Relay Assaults' section it says "If told told to move a million metric tons of mass, the relay will scan the approach..." and so on. To me, this means it does, in fact, need to be sent a signal of some kind. As for stranding it in the half way through, yes, its likely that it wouldn't, but this is simply me playing with concepts not explored in the Mass Effect games.

As for the Normandy being 50 Meters long, I did read this somewhere, but I couldn't remember a source. If you have it, send it to me so I can source my claims.

Estimated Release Date of Next Chapter: Released

Title: Of Mice and Men


	3. Of Mice and Men

The Incursion was equipped with only six HEV pods, or Human Entry Vehicles. This, like many other things, was due to the space required for the cloaking systems. But each of the six pods was a technological marvel in of it's self. A normal pod, when launched, races strait downwards towards the planet. Its extreme speeds being the only thing between the person inside and AA Gun fire from the planet.

But for a stealth ship, none of these things allow a ship to maintain its cloak. It was decided, after much debate, to rebuild the entire system. The launch itself had to be redone, for one. Before they were deployed via a small detonation, not unlike the workings of a gun. But this would be detected by hostile ships almost immediately. So instead, each pod is fired through the use of magnetic rails along the sides.

The second problem was re-entry itself. The light and heat produced from the friction during re-entry was immense, so much so that even basic sensor's could pick it up. This is, by no means and issue for even most stealth insertions, as by the time you pick it up, it's to late to do anything about it. But sometimes, this case in particular, it is required of the pod to remain undetected during entry itself. This is achieved through a combination of a shallower entry angle, and slower speeds. Unfortunately, this required the landing area to have an open area for the pod to travel horizontally through.

The final problem was impact. The shockwave produced would alert even the most hearing impaired creature within a one kilometre radius. This was both the hardest and simplest problem to solve. They simply replaced the main deceleration rockets placed on the bottom of the pod with Covenant portable gravity lifters. The problem was making a gravity lifter that was strong enough to both, not kill the person inside the pod, but also prevent an impact at a velocity causing the standard impact shockwave. Though the problem was finally solved by adding a micro fusion plant like that in the famous MJOLNIR VI armour.

The result was a fully functional HEV pod that could be inserted onto a planet well remaining completely undetectable to all known sensors except the most sensitive gravimetric ones. This designing was later abandoned due to the debilitating cost of the micro fusion plant. The few in existence are the only ones that will ever exist.

…

The Incursion: Bridge

"So we just have to find out what to do when they return to the ship?" asked Pressly, after Anderson had finished repeating the plan put forward by Ashley and Shepard.

"Assuming they can do what they need too, yes," replied Anderson, "But that's for them to deal with. We just need an escape plan for our part."

"Would it even be that hard?" asked Pressly, "Cant we just go to slipspace?"

"No, the slipspace drive can't be charged while we are cloaked," replied Asya, "We just need to buy ourselves five minutes before we can jump out."

"Even a minute under fire from that many ships could damage the drive," said Anderson, "And we cant fight that many, even if we keep our distance."

"We might be able to if we used the SHIVA's," said Pressly.

"I don't want to use them on our first operation," said Anderson, "Who knows what we might need them for later."

"Captain, if I may," said Asya, "If we retreat behind the moon we can drop the cloak and begin charging the drive. It's possible it would buy us a few extra minutes before they detect us."

"Then we just rush towards the planet, pickup the pelican, and jump away," said Pressly, "Shouldn't be any problem."

"But if we leave direct line of sight then we cant use laser based communication. When they broadcast a signal to alert us, it's possible that they could be detected," added Anderson.

"Would it mater?" added Pressly, "At that point we would already be moving in to pick them up."

"Our plans no more comprehensive then Ashley and Sheppard's," said Anderson, "But as I said to them, it's the best I can expect when we really have no idea what we are doing. Take us towards the planet and into position to drop the ODSTs."

…

The Incursion: HEV Pod Launching Room

Both teams worked quickly to prepare for the mission. Not knowing what they were going to encounter they equipped themselves with a large variety of weapons in the hopes that one would be effective at killing whatever they found.

"Rolan," asked Ashley, "How many M168's do you have?"

The M168 is a demolition charge built by the UNCS for destruction of large objects. Only an handful of such devices could level large building but the main drawback was their weight as each one was almost forty pounds.

"I've got one and Dugal's got one too," he replied, "The turret base wasn't very thick so we should be OK."

"Good, what about weapons?" she asked.

"I've got my MA5C and all the Thermite," he said, "Last time I checked Dugal's got a BR55HC and a shotgun."

"Tell him to take one of the Covenant pistols in case they work better," she said, "Grab some plasma grenades for yourself while your at it."

"Yes ma'am," he replied.

…

The Incursion: Same Place, Same Time

"Look at them run," commented Shepard, "They are like ant's under her."

"You really don't like her, do you commander?" asked Kaidan.

"What would you do if I ran you guys like that?" he said.

"You could try commander," replied Jenkins, "I don't think anything good would come put of it."

"Dam right, don't you forget that Jenkins," said Shepard, "Going over every little thing everyone does just leaves them annoyed. Watch. You guys ready?"

"What if I had forgotten something?" added Kaidan, "Something extremely important?"

"And did you?" he inquired.

"Well, no, but that doesn't mean I couldn't have." he said.

"I rest my case," said Shepard, "I trust you guys to do your own job. I mean it's literally is your own lives on the line."

"Attention all ODST's, we are coming into orbit around the planet. Please prepare for deployment," came the call over the intercom.

"Well you heard it, get ready," said Shepard, "See you on the ground."

…

The Incursion: The Bridge Five Minutes Earlier

"Captain, we are approaching the planet," called Asya, "Ships in orbit are not reacting to our presence."

"How long until we are in position to launch the HEV's?" inquired Anderson.

"We should be in position within five minutes," she said, "After that it will be a further ten for us to get into position behind the closest moon."

"Send word to the ODST, tell them to get ready," Anderson asked.

"Let's just hope that nothing goes wrong," said Pressly.

"You're the one who wanted to attack, surely you knew there would be risk's," Anderson said.

"We need the info and you know it," said Pressly, defensively, "It's not like we are just going for blood."

"Captain, we are in position," inserted Asya, "Should I launch the HEV's?"

"Yes," he responded, "Well it doesn't mater now, it's in their hands now."

…

The Incursion: Inside of Shepard's HEV Pod

"OK, you all know the plan," said Shepard, talking to his team through the pods communication , "We get in, get out, and stay alive."

"What do we do if Ashley's team fails?" asked Jenkins.

"Then we do both of our missions," replied Shepard, "Shouldn't be that hard actually. Is it to late too kick their team off?"

"Shut up, commander," said Kaidan, "She can do her job as well as we can do ours."

"Whatever," he said dismissively, "How long until we get going?"

Two small beeps, and one at a slightly higher pitch went of, signalling the imminent drop of the pod.

"About five seconds commander," called Kaidan.

"Now's the time to pray to your gods boys," came Ashley's voice over the communication's system, "This might get rough."

"Since when could she do that?" asked Jenkins, "Or better yet, has she been listening this entire time?"

"You would think she would have better things to do," commented Shepard.

Any response that they might have had to this was cut off as the pods were shot from the ship. Even being slower then normal the pods still reached speeds over a hundred miles an hour.

"Deploy drag fins now!" called Shepard, "Reorient towards landing site delta!"

It wasn't loud in the pods, in fact it was quite the opposite. But the adrenalin rush of just knowing what you were doing was enough to distract people of the job at hand. Grabbing the control sticks in front of him Shepard worked tirelessly to maintain a proper angle of entry. Too low and he risked cooking himself alive as the pods heat shielding would give out before landing, and the higher it was the more heat energy would be produced in total, giving ground based probes a better chance of picking them up.

"Begin charging gravity generator capacitors, and prepare for impact," he yelled, reaching for a switch in front of him, "ETA ten seconds."

"Activate generators in 5, 4, 3.….." called Shepard, but was cut off as a massive shock wave hit the pod. His vision blurred as the many forces working on ripping his pod apart effect him. The safety systems activated the generator at the last possible second in an attempt to prevent lethal deceleration. This was the only thing that prevented him from dieing on impact, but as the pod lost its required orientation it also served to put it more off course, slamming into the side of the of the compound. While he survived in the impact, he still lost consciousness.

…

Secure Complex: Kaidan's Impact Site

Reaching upward Kaidan grabbed the manual release, yanking it down and detonating the charges used to force the door off the pod in the event of a crash. Regaining most of his senses he immediately reached for the silenced SMG beside him. He grabbed the side of the pod in order to balance himself as he stood up, bringing his gun to his shoulder as he turned to survey the area around him. Seeing nothing he lowered his gun slightly.

"Commander?" he said into his suits communication systems.

"Kaidan?" said Jenkins, "Thank god, I didn't know if anyone else made it."

"Any word from the commander?" he asked, "And any idea what the hell hit us?"

"Nothing from the commander and I have no idea what hit us," he replied, "I haven't gotten anything from Alpha team either. "

"Our first priority should be finding the commander," he said, "Any idea were he might have landed?"

"From what I saw he hit the building on the east wing," he said.

Kaidan winced at that, it was a well known fact that hitting building in a drop pod was likely to cause death.

"These new pods might have saved him," he said, sighing, "We're going to find out either way. I'll meet you there."

Climbing out of the pod Kaidan took advantage of the height to look around the area. He saw the complex to the north, relative to himself anyway, so that meant he had to head northwest from here. Jumping to the ground he began running a diagnostic on his suit. While he was fine it didn't mean everything was.

"What about Alpha Teams impacts," Kaidan asked, "Did you see any of them?"

"No," Jenkins replied, "I was too busy trying to keep myself alive to worry about everyone else."

"I'll give you that," he said, "Did they detect our entry? Was that AA fire that hit us?"

"AA fire that doesn't appear to kill anyone?", Jenkins answered, "If they really are that pathetic then this should be easy."

"Well, we'll see wont we," Kaidan said, "Anyway, focus on finding the commander pod for now. I'll meet you there."

Raising his gun Kaidan began the moving towards west wing of the complex at a brisk pace. Looking around, he was surprised to see that there was still no one in the area.

"Hey," Kaidan asked, "At this point, I no longer think we have the element of surprise. So where is everyone?"

"Well…" Jenkins started, "No, actually that's a dammed good question."

"Something's not right about this," Kaidan stated, raising his gun a little more, "Stay ready."

After another few minutes of uneventful walking Kaidan reached the complex. No visible cameras, defense systems, or even a guard.

"I'm at the west wing," he said, "See any doors?"

"Very end," he replied, "I've been watching it for the last few minutes. Nothing in or out."

"On my way," he said.

Rounding the side of the building Kaidan saw the 'Door' that Jenkins had talked about. It was flush with the wall and completely made out of metal. Looking to the surrounding area he saw Jenkins crouched behind a metal object with his gun pointing at the door.

"About time you got here," Jenkins remarked as he jumped over the object and moved towards the door, "So, what's the plan?"

"We go in, get the commander, find some intelligence, and get out alive," he replied, "I thought you of all people would know this."

"I don't see any controls," Jenkins replied, "So you thinking we just blow it open?"

"Do you have a better idea?" he asked, "No? Then get too it."

Jenkins stared at Kaidan for a second, before getting to work planting the bomb.

"How long should I set the detonator for?" asked Jenkins.

"How fast can you get behind that cover?" he asked back.

"You got it," he said, "And you might want to get running."

"Why? How long are you setting it…" at this point the stopped talking. Looking at the bomb he saw a small red light being blinking. His eyes widened for a fraction of a second before he turned and ran as fast as he could.

"YOU SON OF A BITCH!" Kaidan yelled.

"YOU SAID AS FAST AS I COULD GET BEHIND THE COVER," Jenkins yelled, "AND I'M GOING TO MAKE IT!"

Kaidan saw Jenkins running past him diving behind the object he had used as cover previously. Not having time to get behind in the same manner he simply put his hand on the side and attempted to slide across it, crashing into the ground on the other side and rolling for a few feet. The sound of the explosion was too much for his helmets audio filter to handle, so he still heard a loud bang, crippling his hearing temporarily.

Regaining his focus he looked towards Jenkins to make sure he was still alive, as it would be so much harder to kick his ass if he wasn't. Seeing him leaning over his cover with his gun at the ready reminded him that they were in the middle of breaching the building.

Popping up from his own cover he brought his gun to his shoulder, ready to shoot at anything that moved. But nothing was there, beside the previously secure door being blown into several bits and strewn around the area.

"Nothing?," said Jenkins, in disbelief, "Is there even anyone in there? Or are we assaulting an abandoned outpost?"

"With that many ships in orbit I highly doubt its abandoned," Kaidan replied, "Its more likely that having the commanders drop pod smash into the building has them a little distracted. But that's not going to last long, lets get moving, quickly."

Standing from behind cover they both moved towards the entrance, both keeping their guns to their shoulders.

"Listen for foot steps, and watch your corners," said Kaidan, "And what side did the pod hit?"

"Left side, I saw the impact on my way over here," he replied, "Second floor assuming they have one."

"Ok we keep to the left and…" he paused.

Listening to the area around him he heard a sound unmistakably that of metallic clicks. Foot steps, he thought. Looking around he saw no possible place to hide.

"Get ready," he said, "Left side."

They both lowered down to their knees, gun's ready at their shoulders pointing down the hall just as an odd 'creature' turned the corner with its own 'gun' in its hands. Not hesitating for even a second Kaidan pulled the trigger on his gun sending dozens of high velocity rounds towards his target, with Jenkins doing the same. Only to see them flatten upon a bluish glow surrounding the alien.

"Fuck," he though, "Yet another races with shields."

Less then two seconds after beginning their fire were they beginning to run low on ammo, though finally it happened. The blue glow stopped and the bullets began to rip through the armor and flesh of the creature, killing it instantly.

"God dam," said Jenkins, "Nearly two full mag's to kill one of the guys?"

"The better question is," started Kaidan, "'Does everyone but us have god dam shields?'"

"It's really looking like it isn't it," he replied, "Anyway we might want to avoid fights with anymore if possible. Even one that's ready for us might kill you, let alone two."

"Oh yes," he said, "Kill me."

They began walking down the hall again, but Jenkins stopped above the now dead alien.

"You don't think he'll need this anymore do you?" he asked, as he pried the weapon out of its hands, "I mean it is gathering Intel isn't it?"

"Isn't it a bad thing to be looting the dead?" he asked well shaking his head, "I mean really."

"Anything that keeps us alive is good to me," he replied, "Anyway we need to keep moving."

"Fine," he replied.

"But first I'm taking this one," said Kaidan as he worked to remove a second weapon from its back."

"Anyway lets get moving," Jenkins said, "We really should go find the commander."

"Yeah, lets stay off the main paths," he said, "Work our way around the side rooms and hopefully avoid anymore people."

"Good plan," he said, "But one thing first."

He proceeded to point his new weapon towards the wall and pulled its trigger, causing a large spread of projectiles to pepper the wall.

"Alien shotgun," he called, "That's kick ass!"

Kaidan, curiosity overwhelming him, proceeded to do the same thing. Only to discover that his weapon functioned more like a normal assault rifle.

"Uninteresting," he said, "But it could work, anyway lets go."

"Fine," Jenkins said.

…

Alien Complex: Five Minutes Later

Kaidan put up his hand, the universal signal for 'Stop', and both him and Jenkins held in place, listening. He heard many sounds coming from around the corner, and the large amount of dust and debris on the ground told him that this was the crash site.

"Are those voices?" asked Jenkins.

"Maybe, but it doesn't mater," he replied, "If the commanders over there we need to deal with them and get him out of there."

Leaning around the corner Kaidan saw three of the aliens they had killed earlier, too many for them to simply shoot, and he also saw the commanders pod, buried halfway into the next floor.

"Three contacts," he said, "Same as before. Any ideas?"

"Just one," he said, as he pulled two Covenant Plasma Grenades, "If they work against Covenant shields it should work against theirs."

"Good plan," he replied, grabbing one, "On three?"

"One," said Jenkins, "Two…"

"Three!" they both yelled, turning the corner and throwing the plasma grenades at the aliens.

Not waiting too see if they had actually contacted that aliens, they moved back behind the wall they were by previously, pulling out their new weapons just as blue waves of plasma flew past them. Leaning around the corner with his gun raised Kaidan searched for any movement. Seeing no immediate movement he slowly moved out of the cover and started advancing down the hall.

"There's the pod," said Jenkins, looking ahead.

"Really?" he asked sarcastically, "You think I cant see that?"

"Oh shut up…" he began, but stopped after hearing a small medal clank.

Spinning around they both pointed their guns at the source of the sound. One of the aliens had rolled over and was now reaching for the weapon on the ground next to it. Kaidan could see multiple plasma burns covering its body. Sighing, he pointed his gun towards it. He didn't mind killing, but leaving something to die slowly was unnecessary. As such he tapped the trigger on the gun to finish the alien off. Only to have the 'bullets' impact the same shields as before.

"Fuck!" he yelled, this time holding down the trigger on his weapon. It took less then a second for the weapon to deplete the shields, allowing the projectiles the riddle the alien with holes, ending its life.

"Are their guns really that much more powerful?" asked Jenkins, "I mean it took both of us twice that long to drop that last ones shields."

"The plasma might have done damage to the systems," he said, "But that doesn't mater, lets open the pod up."

At the pod Kaidan found the external manual release, a small red button covered in a Plexiglas sheet.

"You might want to get out of the way," he said, "This thing isn't going to stop for anything."

He immediately moved back around the same corner they came from as Kaidan bashed the cover with the butt of his gun. He pressed his back to the wall, out of the way, as he reached his hand around to press the button.

The exposition shook the entire complex as the charges on pod shot the door down the hall at high speeds. Quickly move to investigate the state of his commander, Kaidan saw him in the pod slouched forward unmoving. He put his hand forward towards his neck checking for a pulse.

"He's still alive," he said, "Just unconscious from the looks of it. Got a med kit?"

"Yeah," he said, "Let me get it."

Reaching into pack on his back he grabbed a white rectangular shaped box with a red H on it and passed it to Kaidan, along with some plasma grenades.

"Never know when you might need them," he said.

"True," he said, as he opened the package and grabbed a large needle labelled 'Stimulants' and connected it to a biofoam injection port on the armor Sheppard was wearing.

"That should do it," he said, "Should only take a few seconds."

As predicted, less then ten seconds later Shepard's head twisted signifying him now being conscious. Lifting his head he looked around briefly before reaching for his gun.

"Good to have you back commander," said Jenkins.

"Little late to the party," he said, looking around, "What happened anyway?"

"From what we can tell, after that explosion your pod crashed into the building," said Kaidan, "And the impact knocked you out."

"I figured that part," he said, getting up, "But what exploded? And what happened to Alpha?"

"No idea on both counts," he said, "But we really should get moving more people might be here soon."

"Agreed," he said, "One thing, what are you holding right now?"

"Long story, I'll explain on the way," said Kaidan.

"To where exactly?" asked Jenkins, "This entire this is FUBAR, we have no idea what's going on."

"Well we still have to find some Intel and we still have to find Alpha, dead or alive," said Kaidan.

"Let's get moving then," then Shepard as he raised his gun and started moving down the hall.

"Sir, you might want to take this," said Kaidan as he reached down to the ground and picked up another weapon used by the aliens, "They have shields so, from what we can tell, it's best to use Covenant weapons or theirs."

"Does everyone but us have shields?" asked Shepard.

"We've already been over that commander," said Kaidan, "And yes, everyone but us."

"Great," he said sarcastically.

All three people began to move down the hall with their guns raised in preparation for any surprises. Encountering no resistance they quickly traversed through the building coming upon a large circular room. In the center was a giant metal tower stretching from the floor to the roof and branching off into a large number of metal bars connecting to nearly every part of the room. But the impressive part wasn't the central tower, it was the walls themselves that attracted their attention, as they were covered in a very familiar bluish glow.

Entering the room both Shepard and Kaidan crouched behind some control panels with their weapons raised, searching for contacts. While Jenkins moved forwards between the two of them.

"What is this thing?" he asked, not really expecting an answer.

"No idea," said Shepard, "But it doesn't matter. It's likely this is some kind of central area which means these computers probably have the info we need. So lets just set up a link and get out of here."

"Yeah," replied Jenkins, "But really… Just look at this place."

He was creeping steadily closer to a pedestal like area directly at the base of the tower. But stopped when an alien came out from behind the tower. Raising his gun in preparation to end its life like the others he froze. Not only was this one different from the others but it also appeared to be unarmed, and a woman. It was this fact that prevented him from immediately peppering the alien with 'bullets'. Seeing as both Shepard and Kaidan also didn't fire he assumed they came to the same conclusion as him.

There was a pause, as all three of them knew they couldn't communicate with this being. This ended when she raised her hand in front of her.

'Is she surrendering?' thought Jenkins.

Then a bluish aura quickly surrounded her body then begin moving down her arms and out her palms, traveling towards Jenkins. He tensed not knowing what it was, but upon impact it didn't kill him as he had expected. Instead, he felt his feet leaving the ground as he raised upwards.

Seeing this as a hostile action both Shepard and Kaidan opened fire, only to have the alien move back behind cover. Sheppard, not wasting any time, moved forward to assist his team mate. But only succeeding in getting a better view as one of the aliens he had seen dead on the ground raise above the low wall it was hiding behind and take aim at the now helpless Jenkins.

"What the hell," said Jenkins, too distracted from recently being lifted off the ground to notice the gunman.

Those were the last words he ever said, as the alien pulled the trigger on its weapon sending nearly a dozen 'bullets' towards him. His battle armor not even slowing the rounds as they ripped into flesh. Leaving a now bloodied body to fall to the ground with a wet smack as the force holding him up gave away.

"Damn it," yelled Shepard, ducking behind the closest cover he could find, "Son of a bitch!"

The female alien came back around the tower with the same bluish glow already surrounding its body and bringing its hands up. Only to be thrown back herself as a large bullet smashed into her shields depleting it instantly and throwing her to the ground leaving her completely open for a second bullet to dig into her chest killing her instantly.

Kaidan, taking advantage of the brief distraction, grabbed one of the plasma grenades off of his belt and pressed the button on its surface, priming it, before throwing it behind the cover that the second alien was using. His arm was good, as less then five seconds later a loud scream was heard as the plasma burned skin and bone alike.

"What the hell hit the first one?" asked Kaidan, looking around the room.

"Hey!" yelled a third person, "Up here!"

"No way," said Shepard, "It cant be."

"It is," said Kaidan, sighing, "Get over it."

Twenty feet up, currently hanging upside down off one of the rafters, was Ashley, holding her sniper rile. Hanging the rifle back over her shoulder she pulled herself up onto the bar she was hanging onto to before reaching into her backpack and pulling out a long cable and wrapping it around the bar and clipping it together to form a rope. Wrapping it around her wrist she proceeded to slide down to the ground.

The first thing Shepard noticed was her lack of a helmet, and he commented on this.

"Where's your gear?" he asked over the external speakers on his suit, "And your team for that matter."

"Helmet was smashed on impact, but I'm not complaining probably saved my life," she said, "And my team was dead on impact."

"I know how you feel," said Shepard, glancing towards Jenkins body, "But now isn't the time to deal with that. Do you know anything about that shockwave?"

"From what I can tell," said Ashley, "The base was shielded. Dugal's pod smashed into it and the shockwave detonated his M168's. Both them and the wave produced by the shield breaking caused the shock wave that hit the pods."

"Shields?" he asked, "That could complicate things. If they are reactivated they would prevent any kind of extraction."

"That's what I thought," said Ashley, "This thing might be either the shield generator or the power generator. At least I think so, for all I know it could be both, it could be neither. But either way I have planted termite strips across all the supporting beams overhead."

"What about the AA-Gun?" asked Kaidan.

"I've got my M168 planted on it." she said, "So it can be taken out whenever we need it done. What about you guys? Have you got the info we needed?"

"We were hoping to get it from here," said Kaidan, "and if it is a shield generator there is a good chance it's connected to the main systems."

"You really should get to that Kaidan," said Shepard, "We don't know how long we have until more of them show up."

"Fine," he said, moving over to the closest panel to him.

Not seeing any kind of screws or other means of opening the panel he took the simplest route available. Taking a plasma grenade off his belt he pressed the arming button and quickly drew a box on the console, melting the area slightly before he threw it off to the side. Ignoring the explosion and the protest from the other two people he quickly smashed the panel with the butt of the gun, breaking it on the lines he had melted out before.

With current day encryption being what it is it's nearly impossible for the average person to successfully hack into any kind of computer system above that of door controls or other minor systems. Now instead of actually hacking into the computers the person only need to hook up a special device known as the 'Bridge'. It is essentially a small computer with a powerful transmitter to allow long range communication with a ship in orbit. But the actual function of it was to intercept and alter electrical signals that were routed through the device. By simply connecting the device between two points in a computer it allowed a ship based AI to remotely hack the system for the person, and because the wireless access point technically doesn't exist it is not protected by any firewalls or other such security systems.

So all Kaidan actually had to do was pick a single wire, or wire like object, and connect it to two terminals on the bridge. Grabbing the closest cable he proceeded to strip off the covering in two places and connected it to the bridge. Then we cut the wire between the two points forcing all the signals to go through the device.

"OK, its set up," said Kaidan, "The rest is up to Asya."

"Good," said Ashley, "Now lets head to the extraction zone."

"Sure thing, Commander," he said, still not liking her giving his orders.

"Send the signal to the Incursion tell them to pick us up," said Ashley, "And let's get out of here."

The Incursion: In Orbit Above Unknown Planet

"Captain," said Asya, getting Andersons attention, "I have confirmation of an established link into the computer systems of the aliens, and a request for extraction by the ground team."

"Send the pelicans and begin to bring us around the moon," said Anderson, "I want the stealth systems online but have the pulse lasers ready in case the ships fire upon the pelicans."

"Already being done," replied Asya, "It might take longer then expected for me recover the necessary files from the computers. When some files are run through the translation software I am constructing they come out semi legible well other come out completely incomprehensible. It is possible they are using multiple languages or have each file individually encrypted."

"Focus on the star charts of the local area," said Anderson, "When and if you complete that proceed to download as much as possible for decryption at a later date."

"Will do," she replied, "The pelicans are entering atmosphere and the hostile ships are beginning to reorient towards the planet."

"Doubtful they will fire with their own people below," said Pressly.

"True," said Anderson.

Charley Pelican: Unknown Planet's Atmosphere.

"Joker to ground team," he called over his radio, "I'm still seeing an intact AA Gun. We can't land with it still there."

"Roger, sending detonation signal now," said Sheppard, as Ashley no longer had her radio.

True to his word a large explosion was seen at the point where the turret connected to the building below it severing the top and causing it to fall into the building to the side.

"Watch the surrounding area for confirmation of the shields being taken out," said Sheppard.

"Shields?" he asked.

Inside the large circular room the multiple strips of thermite, ignited by remote trigger, began to melt through the beams they were on. With a large portion of the major supporting beams cut the tower began to buckle under its down weight crashing to the floor and taking a large portion of the room with it, including the hacked terminal.

Looking down on the complex Joker saw a large blue aura shimmer before fading away. Not wanting to risk having it still be online he fired a small burst from the Gatling Gun mounted on the nose of his ship, extremely satisfied to see all the rounds impact the ground.

"Shields down," said Joker, "Good work."

"This is alpha," came a voice over the intercom, "A small convoy heading towards the compound has begun slowing down."

Opening up the feed from the rear camera Joker saw the convoy in question. Zooming in he saw the reason they stopped, as the front car began aligning a large turreted weapon towards the pelicans.

"Scatter!" yelled Joker, a fraction of a second too late as the vehicle's cannon sent a large round flying towards Beta and striking the area between his right engine and the ship itself, exploding a quarter of a second after impact and ripping the engine off the ship leaving it to begin spinning as its left engine continued to provide forward thrust.

"Dam it," he yelled, "Get close to the ground and stay there!"

"This is Joker to Captain Anderson," he said as he opened a new communication channel, "Enemy ground forces has AA capabilities and have already shot down Beta. We are going to need support if we are going to make it back out of atmosphere."

"We read you," came Asya voice, "Continue with the pickup and be ready for new orders."

"Will do," he said as he swung the ship around well descending rapidly towards the extraction site.

'They better hurry up,' thought Joker.

The Incursion: High Orbit Around Unknown Planet

"Sir, pelicans are reporting AA fire from ground based forces," said Asya, "They are requesting assistance."

"Bring us in between the ships in orbit and the ground based installations," said Anderson, "I've always wanted to try this."

"And your plan is…?" asked Pressly.

"Once in position we drop the cloak and hope they wont fire on us in fear of hitting their colony," he said, "Then we charge the slipspace drive, lock ground targets and descend into atmosphere."

"Since we couldn't make it out on the power of our thrusters alone we simply jump out from there," said Asya, catching on, "The laser can destroy all ground based targets giving the pelican a clear run."

"Wouldn't the shockwave destroy most of the colony like in the New Mombasa incident?" asked Pressly, "Though that might not be a bad thing actually. I like it."

"That just leaves one thing," said Anderson, "Where do we go too Asya?"

"The link was interrupted so I didn't get much more then the local area," she explained, "But our best bet is a system less then four light years away. From the records it's highly populated. What's interesting is that it lacks one of these 'objects' which means they likely have some form of FTL travel that can be installed on a ship."

"Why would we want to go to a highly populated area?" asked Pressly, "Wouldn't that mean higher security?"

"You can't secure an entire planet," said Anderson, "Not to mention we could easy steal civilian technology from the planet. Set it as the destination and prepare for the plan."

"Yes sir," she replied.

Ground Team: Unknown Planet

"Lets go!" yelled Shepard as all three of them began running through the complex towards the exit.

The extraction site was a small courtyard in the center of the installation. It was easy to get to from any where they might be in the building.

Reaching the courtyard Shepard saw the pelican hovering in the center of the area and quickly moved towards it, stopping just short of boarding as he instead opted to turn and watch the area with his gun raised. Both Kaidan and Ashley entered quickly moving towards the back of the ship to minimizing the risks of falling out during take off.

Just before boarding himself Shepard heard a sound and turned to see an alien running away from the pelican. Not missing the opportunity he raised his gun and held down the trigger until he saw the telltale blue flash indicating its shields had dropped. He pulled his finger off the trigger in an attempt to stop any further damage but two 'bullets' still left the gun and ripped two holes in the aliens suit, and it, before continuing out the other side.

The alien stumbled and grabbed for its abdomen where it had been shot giving Shepard all the time he needed. Quickly putting his left foot forward he reached for a fragmentation grenade from his belt and put his right hand behind him. He then threw the grenade like it was a baseball, not pulling the pin. Traveling at close too forty miles an hour the grenade passed a large amount of kinetic energy into alien when it impacted its head, knocking it out instantly.

Rushing away from the pelican Shepard saw that this alien, unlike the others, was wearing a helmet. Not waiting he quickly grabbed the aliens limp body and threw it over his shoulder and ran back towards the pelican, throwing it inside before jumping in himself.

"That's not how you use a grenade Shepard," said Ashley, grinning.

"I'm sure you caught your prisoner in a much more effected manner," he said, grinning himself, "Oh wait, you don't have one do you?"

"Oh shut up both of you," said Kaidan, slouching into a chair and hitting the door next to him to signal that they were all onboard.

Charley Pelican: Cockpit

"This is joker," he said, "Cargo is secure and I really don't want to be caught with my pants down here."

"Ascend as high as you can and be ready for the signal," came Asya's voice.

"The signal being?" he asked.

"Mass death from above," she said simply.

"Ah," he replied, "That's a good signal."

Looking upward he saw the Incursion drop downward at a rapid pace. The clouds in the area parting as its large form descended between them. Then he saw the red flashes from the ships pulse lasers ionizing the air around them. The ground targets fired their weapons at the ship but only served to give it new targets.

'Pulse lasers fired on ground targets' though Joker, 'That sounds like mass death to me.'

"OK, everyone," he said over the intercom, "Ready to go home?"

"I'll kill you myself Joker," said Kaidan, "I've had enough of all this sarcasm. Just get us out of here."

"You really need to calm down," said Joker, laughing to himself as he quickly accelerated to the pelicans maximum speed in an attempt to get to the ship before anything could intercept him. He highly doubted this, seeing as almost everything on the ground was now a crater of semi melted glass from the high heat of the lasers, but it couldn't hurt to be careful.

As soon as they had landed onboard a large blue circle formed in front of the ship expanding rabidly until it was larger then the ship itself. At this point the main engines began to accelerate the ship forwards entering the portal. Once through the blue circle collapsed into a single point and held position for a second before expanding outward sending a large shockwave smashing into the sounding area. Ripping roofs off of buildings and smashing cars into each other and the building around them.

"And that's that," said Joker, "Fun way to end the day don't you think?"

Swearwords were all that were heard over his radio.

Authors Note

Sorry for the delay, we were swapping over to a new ISP so I was internet less for a week. Though the faster internet is nice :D

This chapter is something like 7000 words long, making it almost as long as the first one with the authors note included.

Three things this time,

One, someone said that I have underpowered the MAC weapon used by the UNSC. And I would just like to ask how? I have it killing anything it hits in a single strike. What more do you want?

Two, can anyone guess who the alien Shepard bagged was?

Three, the biggest point here. Next chapter the reason for the Turians attacking will be explained and one of the biggest plot devices in the entire fic will be introduced. It really is going to be a make or break chapter

To RedZeroX: Now that you mention it yes, that was a terrible conversion on my part.

To Dusel: I tried to avoid having it be "Instantaneous translation" of the language. The individual files were not encrypted and it was simply the glaring flaws in the translation software. This will play an extremely important role in the next chapter. And as for finding the star charts... Well it would assume it would be more like a picture type thing, something that she could compare to what they know about the local area to find it.

About the data storage. You have to remember that the link was formed off of a single wire. This means that the amount of data that could be sent through it was extremely limited. Therefore she had to prioritize the important things. It would be like trying to download everything you see on the internet on a 16k connection, it just wouldn't work.

Next Chapter Title

If At First You Don't Succeed…

Release Date: 13/08/2010-14/08/2010 (Looking on schedule for a late Friday or early Saturday release)

Current Word Count: 9000 (JUST FINISHED THE CHAPTER INTRODUCED PROBLEM GOD DAM, I feel like my eyes are going to fall out from looking at a computer monitor for so long. Now just a another 500-1000 words to setup the next chapter.)

To the person who messaged me: No. I will not do it as two chapters. Why? I hate leaving something half done. Each chapter will have a beginning, a middle, and an end to the problems introduced in that chapter. The only thing that wont be resolved is that parts added to the overarching story that spans every chapter.


	4. If At First You Don't Succeed

If At First You Don't Succeed…

The Incursion: Briefing Room

"…Then you threw a grenade at it?" asked Pressly, still trying to get his head around how Shepard had captured the prisoner.

"It worked didn't it?" said Shepard, "I mean now we have a prisoner and a place to go."

"That is assuming it makes it," said Anderson, "Despite your attempt Shepard it still wound up being shot a few times. Chakwas looking at it now, but she has no idea what to do seeing as it's an alien."

Doctor Chakwas was the Chief Medical Officer onboard the Incursion. She had served onboard many ships during the war and had seen a fair number of bullet and plasma wounds.

"Even if it doesn't we could learn a lot about its biology," said Ashley, "I mean for all we know it could have two hearts, or none at all."

"I would rather wait until we know its dead before we begin dissecting it," said Anderson, "Besides, the medical parts of this discussion aren't really anything any of us could debate on."

"Then let's move on to the planet we are heading too," said Pressly.

"That's simple," said Ashley, "We head down to the planet and connect some bridges and get out of there."

"The last time your plan was that vague three people wound up dead," said Anderson, solemnly, "No, if you want me to even consider it this time it had better be one hell of a plan."

"Yes sir," said Ashley.

"It will be few hours before we get there anyway," said Anderson, "Get some rest."

Seeing that no one else had anything to add Shepard, Kaidan, and Ashley got up and left the room leaving only Anderson and Pressly.

"Are you really going to let them go down there?" asked Pressly.

"I don't like it any more then you do," said Anderson, sighing, "But our options are limited. Attempting to hack in with brute force would leave us vulnerable and we can't send technicians down to the planet."

"It had better be a damn good plan then," said Pressly, standing up, "For all our sakes."

"And it will be," he said as Pressly left the room, "I'll make sure of it."

Standing up himself Anderson made to move for the door but stopped seeing Chakwas entering.

"I was about to come see you doctor," he said, "Did you get the alien patched up already?"

"I didn't have to," she said, "By the time I got to the holes were already gone., and a short time after that the suit started secreting a clear jell that seemed to repair the holes in the suit."

"Nanobots?" he asked.

"I'm not sure," she replied, "I collected a sample of it but I'm not really qualified to look into it."

The Incursion was equipped with state of the art medical facilities but it lacked any kind of non-medical lab equipment.

"Keep it on ice," said Anderson, "We can deal with it later. What about the alien?"

"That's the problem," she said, "The scans show large amounts of foreign materials spreading out from the places that the 'bullets' passed through."

"Are they coating their 'bullets' with something?" he asked with alarm.

"I don't think so," she replied, "Seeing as they are currently only around the places where the holes were exposed to the outside. Some kind of bacteria might have gotten in when they got the chance, and from what I can tell its body isn't able to stop it."

"You mean its going to die from an infection?" he asked, disbelieving.

"If I can't stop this from spreading it could, yes," she replied, "The problem is that it's entire biology is based upon a different protein structure then us. So in order to even attempt to create a antibiotic I would have to sequence its entire DNA structure."

"How long would that take?" he asked.

"With full support from Asya it could take as little as a day," she said, "The problem would be preventing it from dieing before we finish."

"Does the bacteria pose a threat to any members of the crew?" he asked.

"No, because it is based on an entirely different protein structure it would be unable to affect our body's," she said.

"At least there is some good news," he said, "Try to keep it alive by any means necessary and get to work on sequencing the DNA."

"Yes sir," she said, saluting before leaving the room.

"It's just one thing after another isn't it," he said to himself.

The Incursion: Bridge, Five Hours Later

"Exiting slipspace in four seconds," said Asya, "Beginning long range scans."

Quickly the holotable changed showing the star of the system and all of the planets as these were already identified in the star charts they had. After a few second a red dot appeared above the planet signifying a frigate in orbit, but then many more dots began to show up filling the space around the planet. In close proximity to the planet a large number of triangles could be seen, each one signifying a cruiser type ship. But something new had shown up, a box.

"Captain, I'm reading over a hundred ships out there," said Asya, "One of them being bigger then us."

"Apparently," stated Pressly, "You can secure an entire planet…"

"Send all relevant data to the ODST's," said Anderson, "I would love to see an effective plan for this…"

…

The Incursion: Briefing Room

"Damn…" said Shepard, seeing the defence fleet around the unnamed planet, "And he wants a perfect plan for this?"

"It looks like they actively scan all the ships that come in," said Ashley, "And they have a large number of patrol ships constantly moving in a grid around the planet."

"They sure know how to fortify a planet," said Kaidan, "Or are they just pissed about the last one we visited?"

"It's possible," said Ashley, "I mean to someone who didn't know what happened it could look like we used some kind of weapon that destroyed a large section of the civilized area."

"I'm wondering about those frigates who are a few million kilometres from the planet," said Shepard, "Wouldn't any kind of attacking force simply destroy them?"

"They could just be there to scan the surrounding area and report back to the bigger defence fleet," replied Ashley, "Kind of like a early warning system."

"If we assume that then it would mean their sensors are extremely primitive," added Kaidan, "I mean we are holding even farther out then the frigates and we can still scan the entire system."

"This last frigate," started Shepard, "When they rotate around to the next places this one always heads back to the planet and is replaced with a new one coming from the planet."

"It's nearly a twelve hour cycle around," said Kaidan, "So it is likely they are coming off duty."

"That's a good start," said Ashley, "If we hijack one of the frigates we could simply follow its flight path until its scheduled time to return to the planet."

"What about the fact that each ship is scanned upon returning to the planet?" asked Kaidan, "It is very possible they would see that everyone was dead and that the few things alive have completely different reading then they would expect."

"That and I would like to see any of us fly the damn thing," said Shepard, a little condescendingly.

"We just set up a bridge and have Asya do it," said Kaidan.

"No," said Shepard, "A nearly constant signal would be required and that would lead to even more questions that we couldn't answer."

"What about that one pilot," said Ashley, "He keeps claiming he can fly anything, lets put that to the test."

"Joker?" asked Shepard, "I do NOT see that being a very good idea, not to mention that that still wouldn't address the problem of the ships being scanned."

"Unless you don't kill anyone when you take the ship," commented Asya, "And Joker would be the best plan."

"And how long have you been listening in?" asked Ashley.

"Who do you think is sending you this sensor data?" she asked back.

"Fair enough," she said, "Anyway, how would we take the ship without killing anyone?"

"How were you planning to take the ship without having it alert the fleet anyway?" asked Asya.

"We were kicking a few ideas around," said Shepard, "Why, what's your idea?"

"She's been listening this entire time remember," said Kaidan, "So there is a good chance she know damn well that we had no plan."

"First we drop a HEV pod somewhere along the path of the ship," started Asya, "Then when the ships passes close by the person inside…"

"Dibs," called Shepard, cutting Asya off.

"Then the person inside," she repeated herself, glaring at Shepard, "Opens the pod and jumps onto the ship. They would just have to find some kind of panel and connect a bridge. From there I could vent the atmosphere on the ship until the crew is rendered unconscious."

"Wouldn't they see the HEV?" asked Kaidan, "And if the ship's are shielded wouldn't that also cause some problems?"

"It's likely that the ship wouldn't keep them active to save power," said Ashley, "Like with the Covenant, and the HEV's are built to be undetectable."

"What about the whole scanning thing?" asked Kaidan, still sceptical about it, "I mean human life signs could be radically different from these aliens."

"Get to a medical bay and send word of a biological contamination," said Asya, "Then you could play it off as you simply being infected with something."

"That might get us as close as the planet, but what from there?" asked Kaidan, "They would then be expecting us to need medical attention or something."

"First would be a decontamination sequence," said Asya, "They couldn't risk some kind of unknown disease coming onto the planet. From there you have as long as the sequence lasts to do as needed on the planet."

"What about getting off?" asked Ashley, "If we simply left they would be suspicious."

"We could make a distraction in space," said Asya, "Something big so you could leave without anyone even noticing."

"Combine it with some kind of distraction on the ground," said Shepard, "And it should work."

"Tell the Captain about the plan Asya," said Ashley, "And if he argues you can confuse him with big words or something. The rest of you get ready, Shepard in particular."

…

The Incursion: Bridge

"I thought I asked for a good plan this time?" said Anderson, "Every step has some kind of flaw in it. They could detect the HEV floating in space, they might not fall for the 'it's a disease' thing and then you want us to make a distraction so big that it would cause the ENTIRE defence fleet to look the other way?"

"No matter what kind of plan they make there is going to be some kind of flaw," said Pressly, "Thing's change and people die, that's war."

"Oh I know that, believe me," he said, "But if a single thing goes wrong we could lose a lot of important people."

"I have trust in their ability to keep themselves alive," said Pressly, "Millions of years of evolution has hammered that in us."

"Not to mention I have a good idea of how we can distract the entire fleet," said Asya.

"Here's the deal then," said Anderson, "If it sounds like a good distraction then I'll ok the mission."

"Well," she started, "How strong do you think shields are on that big ship?"

…

The Incursion: ODST Prep Room

"And he green-lighted it right after that?" asked Kaidan, not believing what he was hearing, "I thought he was the down to earth one?"

"Maybe he really wants to test it out?" said Shepard as he began putting on a pressurized version of the ODST armor for his space jump, "I mean I would like to know too."

"Yes," he responded, "It would be a good thing to have for reference later, but we shouldn't be relying on something like this to get us off the planet alive."

"Even if it doesn't work it should still distract them long enough for us to get out," Shepard asked, putting on his helmet, "I don't see why you are so worried. If you're scared you can always stay here."

"Oh I'm so scared," he said mockingly, "I mean I have to board a ship with no guards and pile some body's into the escape pods. What if stub my toe or trip?"

"Even an unconscious one could take you down Kaidan," he said, "Anyway we should be crossing over into the ships flight path soon so I need to be ready."

"Screw you too, commander," he said, "And good luck."

"Thanks," was all he said as he climbed into one of the last HEV pods.

The Incursion was only stocked with three extra pods besides the original six that were already put into place. With the total loss of four pods in the last mission, with alpha having been sent to recover the two functioning ones, there were only five pods remaining.

"After you leave the ship we aren't going to be able to contact you anymore or alert you when the ship is near by," said Asya, "Watch the timer, when it hits zero the ship should be in range and you can begin."

"I think I know how timers work Asya," he replied as a ten minute count down appeared.

"I wasn't sure if you could figure it out," she replied, "Ok, we are in position, good luck Shepard."

Due to the fact that all momentum would be conserved it space the pod was not launched in a normal fashion. Instead the clamps that held it in place were removed and the entire ship move away from the pod, leaving it in its place.

'Now for the fun part,' thought Shepard sarcastically.

…

Shepard's HEV: Space Around Unknown Planet

To most people the ten minute wait would be nerve racking as the person went over all the ways that the mission could go wrong. Shepard, on the other hand, was quite frankly bored. He wasn't worried about messing up, in fact it was the exact opposite, Shepard couldn't wait to get going.

Even though the last attempt to infiltrate the aliens had gone horribly wrong Shepard was excited to get a second shot at it, because ODST were nothing if not insane.

Leaning forward Shepard could see the ship nearby him, but looking at the count down he still had nearly six minutes before he was supposed to go.

'Screw that,' he thought as he unlocked the hatch in font of them and pushed it outward into space before climbing out of, and then on top of, the pod.

'This should be simple,' he thought, 'Just jump to where it's going to be, simple.'

Looking to the side he saw that the ship in question was still a few hundred meters away.

'It's not even going the right direction,' he though, 'Good thing I'm doing this myself then.'

Quickly estimating where he would have to jump to in order to land on the ship he crouched as low as he could and pushed off the pod flying forward well also sending it back.

'Ok, looking good,' he thought, up until the point that the ship started slowing down.

'Fuck,' was the only thing he could think of that fit the situation as he could now see why the countdown was set for another six minutes. This was one of the points where the ship changed direction.

'OK, options,' he thought, 'Options, options, options.'

Reaching behind his back he grabbed the hose that connected his oxygen tank to his helmet and followed it up to the top. Finding the release he grabbed onto it with his other hand. When pulled the suit would lockdown the helmet before letting the hose be disconnected in order to prevent someone from accidentally exposing themselves to space.

'It's just a little oxygen depravation,' he though to himself, 'Given the air in the helmet I should still have at least a few minutes.'

Pulling on the release Shepard quickly ripped the hose out and angled it backwards to give him the thrust he needed to head towards the ship. Opening the valve as far as it could go Shepard began to rapidly accelerate towards the ship before the oxygen ran out.

'Who knows I might even beat the timer anyway,' he thought.

Only meters away from the ship Shepard prepared for impact by rolling so his feet would impact fist and by activating this magnetic boots. A dull thud was all that was heard as he impacted the ship. From this point Shepard was on borrowed time in two ways, first he had very little oxygen, and second, it was only matter of time before someone on the ship found out what had happened and alerted the defence fleet.

Quickly recovering from the impact he reached towards his belt for one of the only weapon he had brought with him. A Type One Energy Weapon, or Energy Sword as it is more commonly known. After activating it he immediately began cutting a hole in the ships plating in order to get to the electronic components inside. Separating the cut out portion from the ship he looked inside and grabbed two cables. It was decided to use two 'bridge' devices due to that fact the some wires might not be control wires and would render their entire plan a failure.

He then went to work setting up the devices as fast as he could, finishing that he put the armor plate back in place and fused it there with his sword. This was simply to prevent the ships scanning it from seeing the hole in the hull.

"I could use pickup immediately," called Shepard, his vision beginning to blur, "Due to complications I am now running out of oxygen."

At this point contacting the Incursion would not be a problem as Asya would hopefully already be in control of the ship.

"Joker and the rest of the team are already on the way," said Asya, "And I thought you said you knew how a count down works?"

"I got it done didn't I?" he responded, hastily.

"Assuming you don't die before Joker gets there," she added, oddly cheerfully.

"Is that really a possibility?" he asked, his voice betraying more worry then he would have liked.

"No," said Joker, joining on the conversation, "Well, not if you jump right now."

Not being able to see a reason to jump, due to him hardly being able to see anything at this point, he just didn't question it. Deactivating his boots and pushing off the ship. Joker, seeing that he had left the surface of the ship, flipped his left engine directly around to spin the pelican while he opened the back, catching Shepard as he floated away.

Being the only other person on the team equipped with a pressurised suit Kaidan was left sitting in the back of the pelican holding a spare air tank in front of him when Shepard came flying in crashing into the back of the pelican. Ignoring his cries of pain Kaidan immediately connected the hose to his helmet and reconnected the release control allowing the suit to begin cycling new air.

"You OK?" he asked.

"Yeah…" said Shepard, "Just a little suffocation…"

"Oh suck it up," said Kaidan, "You're not dead."

"Asya," asked Shepard, "Did you gain control of the ship?"

"Let's just say it was a good idea that you put down two 'bridges'," she said, "First one was a power cable, that fried the bridge in a few seconds, but the second was linked to the main systems."

"So do you have control over the ship?" he asked again.

"Oh no," she said, "I'm still trying to learn this coding language."

"Then…" he started, "What have you accomplished?

"I've prevented the ship from sending out a call for help," she said defensively, "And I've nearly gained control of the life support."

"Wait," asked Joker, "So we have something like twelve hours from this point to disable the crew, setup wireless links to all the main systems, and for me to learn how to fly it. But now your telling me you don't even know how to fly it?"

"What did you expect?" she asked incredulously, "For me to know all the in's and out's of flying a completely alien ship in seconds?"

"Well…" began Joker, "No, but seeing as this entire plan hinges on it, it might be a good thing to know. Also, I'm flying blind out here, where's the hatch?"

"Its on the bottom, back of the ship," she answered , "And I've got life support. Beginning to decompress the ship."

"Suffocating ain't fun," said Shepard, "And what about opening the hatch and letting us board?"

"You doubt my ability to hack some door controls?" she said, insulted, "Even Kaidan could do that."

"What is with it and me being the butt of everyone's jokes lately?" asked Kaidan.

"Oh suck it up," said Shepard, trying to impersonate him, "You're not dead."

"Cut the chatter you two!" called Ashley, "We are about to board a ship that might be full of hostiles."

"Restoring standard pressure and opening rear hatch," said Asya, "Internal security scanners aren't picking up any movement so it's likely that they have been rendered unconscious."

"Excellent," said Ashley, "Bring us in Joker."

"I was supposed to wait to do that?" replied Joker, "I landed a few seconds ago."

Sure enough, when Shepard and Kaidan looked out the still open hatch they were inside the ship.

"Nice landing," commented Kaidan.

"It was," added Shepard, nodding.

Not wasting anymore time both Kaidan and Shepard raised their guns. Due to the fact that they had no idea how to reload the weapons taken off the alien, or even if they needed reloading, and because they didn't want to risk having their weapons stop working mid fight, it was decided to instead bring MA5C Assault Rifles. They hoped that the larger rounds would allow them to stop targets faster then when they had used SMG's. Leaving the ship they both looked around, under whelmed by the sights around them.

"What's with these people and the color blue?" asked Shepard, "I mean everything is blue. Their shields, that generator thing, that chicks weird power, and now the interior of the ships."

"Maybe it's some kind of religious thing?" said Kaidan, "Anyway this place is clear, I guess everyone really is unconscious."

"Fine, lets get to work," said Shepard.

"Oh no," said Kaidan, "I have to help Joker route some controls. The heavy lifting's all yours."

As having the ship depressurizing around would probably be a cause for alarm it was likely that most of the unconscious 'people' would be clustered around doors and bulkheads as people attempted to escape the sections of the ship that were depressurizing, little did they know it was in fact the entire ship. This would be extremely suspicious on the scanning they would come under upon their approach to the planet so it was decided that they need to move all the 'people' back to their posts.

"Knowing my luck," started Shepard, "Their armor is going to weigh a hundred pounds."

"Get to work," said Ashley, as she jumped out of the pelican, "We're on a clock here, so Shepard get moving some body's and Kaidan, get to work modifying the control panel's."

"Any reason you aren't helping?" asked Shepard, "I mean there might be an awful lot of body's."

"I have my own things to do and you know it," she replied.

"Fine, whatever," he said before heading off to reposition the body's.

"Let's go Kaidan," said Ashley, raising her own weapon.

Her own weapons were picked for their usefulness in the third part of the mission, where she would be navigating the city below in order to set up 'bridge' devices, as such she had taken a Covenant Beam Rifle and a Energy Sword like the one Shepard had brought. Her reasoning was simple, she might be required to kill targets who see her from the ground and as such she needed a sniper and seeing the effectiveness of Covenant weapons on these aliens, combine with the fact that the weapon was quieter then her normal sniper made it an obvious choice. The sword on the other hand made little to no sound at all and would be useful for cutting into building, and people if needed.

"I'm assuming that the main controls are at the front?" asked Kaidan.

"Yes," replied Asya, "I guess the placement of the bridge doesn't matter in a ship this size, if they break the shields they aren't going to last very long anyway."

"OK," said Joker, finally leaving his Pelican, "Let's get going, we only have like eleven hours left."

Moving quickly through the ship, with its size being what it was it wasn't actually that hard, they came upon the door to the bridge. As it began to open in front of them Ashley and Kaidan brought their weapons up and moved to either side of the door frame, with joker staying a good distance away. Looking inside Ashley saw a few body's piled in front of the door but other then that it was mostly empty.

"Kaidan, Joker, Asya, do your thing," said Ashley, "I'll secure the these guys."

Bending down Ashley first removed all the visible weapons on the aliens and moved them into a pile in the corner. When she finished that she used zip ties to secure their hands behind their backs. After that all that was left to do was to put them back into their chairs.

"Dam, these guys are heavy," said Ashley, dragging one of them across the room, "I really don't envy Shepard right now."

Unknown Frigate: Different Place

Shepard, on the other hand, was complaining about something completely different.

'Who carry's four guns at a time?" thought Shepard, after having amassed a pile of weapons nearly a foot high, 'A shotgun, an assault rifle, a sniper and a pistol? Do these people even have a word for overkill?'

Finally satisfied that he had striped all the people onboard of their weapons, given them extra sedation, and firmly secured their hands he was left with only one task. Moving the body's back to their original places. He started in the mess hall, at least he thought it was a mess hall, by attempting to put the people back in their seats. He grabbed one and began dragging it towards the table.

'Yup,' he thought, 'That's at least a hundred pound armor, I'm in for a fun day.'

…

Unknown Frigate: Bridge

"So they use two different controls for velocity?" asked Joker, "That seems… Odd."

"Well one is directly controlling the engines," said Asya, "But the other controls a something they call a 'Mass Effect Field,' it seems it can alter the weight of the ship in order to allow the engines to achieve higher accelerations."

"Interesting," said Kaidan, "So then the entire ship is equipped with antigravity?"

"No, antigravity wouldn't produce this kind of effect," she said, "They are somehow physically altering the mass of each atom in the ship. The possibilities of such a technology are immense."

"Deal with the science bit later," said Kaidan, "Just tell me what other wires I need to hook up."

"Well assuming we are going to need to fly the ship, and communicate with the other ships," started Asya, "Almost all of them."

"Fine," said Kaidan, heading back under the console, "This had better work."

"Anyways," said Joker, "What about FTL?"

"From what I'm reading," she said, "It's activated by turning this 'Mass Effect Field' to its maximum capacity. Apparently the ship loses its mass altogether at that point."

"That just leaves the fact that I can't read a thing," said Joker.

"I'll have a fully functioning translation program by the time you guys have rotate back to the planet," she replied, "If you don't mind I can upload the data to your neural interface. It won't let you hear what they say but you should be able to read what they write."

Since the war new neural interfaces have replaced the old version. A cross between a command neural interface and a normal one. These allow even normal soldiers to have information uploaded directly into their heads, but this is done only with permission of the soldier as this process can require day's if not weeks of time spend under medical supervision as there are possibilities for fatal complications otherwise.

"Oh joy," said Joker.

It was a well known fact that having information put directly into your brain was a very unpleasant experience. The effects of knowing that which you would normally not know can cause people to become extremely disoriented, but this effect generally only lasted for a few seconds.

"As long as it's just the written language there shouldn't be any problem," said Asya, "I can just have the interface overlay English over the alien words."

"How long until you can have speech done as well?" asked Kaidan, seeing the benefits of such a thing immediately.

"I just need more data," she responded, "Most of the language I'm encountering so far has either been written or military code's and the like."

"Hopefully the wiretaps will get you the data," said Kaidan, "It would be good to be able to communicate with them. If only for the ability to interrogate our prisoner."

"Have you at least found out how we can send the message about our supposed biological crisis?" asked Joker, "Last time I checked that was kind of important to the plan."

"All you have to do is send the message when its time Joker," she replied, "I've already found the part on military code."

"OWW," yelled Kaidan, "You said none of these were live!"

"I said not many of them are live," replied Asya, "Big difference."

"What ever," he said, "It's done."

"We still have something like six hours left don't we Asya?" asked Joker.

"Five and a half," she corrected him.

"All the people are in place," said Shepard, communicating over the radio, "Ready to get rid of the excess."

As four extra people had come on board the frigate, four of the original crew members had to be 'removed'. As such Shepard had placed four people, picked at random, into the pelican they had arrived on.

"OK," said Asya, "I'm assuming control of it now. From this point on there's no going back."

"Well if all the wiring's done and the crew are in position," said Ashley, "Then it's time to get to our places."

"Now we get to go lay on some medical tables for a few hours," said Kaidan, "Sounds like fun."

"I'll send off the preliminary report saying some of the food was contaminated," Asya said.

"What if they recall us immediately?" asked Joker.

"For now the report's just going to say it's a minor thing, something they won't bother to recall us for," she replied, "Wait a few hour's then send the second one I've uploaded to your computer. That should convince them that it's progressing and you need to be recalled. Then just send off the third one to request decontamination."

"Ah you make it sound so easy," commented Kaidan.

"Doesn't matter," exclaimed Ashley, "We're committed now. So get down to the medical bay."

…

Unknown Frigate: Medical Bay Five Hours Later

"Should I send the second message now?" asked Joker, "Its almost been a few hours."

"Not to mention," added Kaidan, "That if we wait until the scheduled time it might looks a little strange. This way it looks like we need to come off early."

"Fine," replied Ashley, "Asya, is the language imprint done?"

"Yes," she replied, "Anyone who wants it say aye. And after this we are going dark over here."

"Just send it to everyone," said Ashley, "We could all use it."

"OK," she replied, "Get ready."

Neural Interfaces have the ability to alter signals sent from the retina to the brain. This allows the user to 'see' the reticule of his gun for instance. Changing the software of an interface requires it to 'reboot'. This is known to cause minor electrical shock's to the host.

"Oww," said Kaidan.

"Sissy," added Shepard, "Even Joker's not bitching."

"I'm too busy sending this signal," said Joker, "Otherwise I would be other there crying with Kaidan."

"Go to hell," said Kaidan.

"Kaidan," commented Ashley, "If you keep overreacting like that they are never going to stop, and Joker do we have a reply yet?"

"Already had it and sent Asya's counter-response," he said, "They want us to head back early so we can go through a hour long decontamination. That long enough for you to do your thing Ashley?"

"Might be a little close but I think I can do it," she replied, "Also, I know this is your first mission Joker, but if you keep doing things without communicating with us I'll let Kaidan kick your ass."

"I could take Kaidan," said Joker, "But I get the point."

"I'm actually not sure who would win that one," added Shepard.

"Ah," started Kaidan.

"As much as I'm sure that would be a fun conversation to have," Joker said, cutting Kaidan off, "I could use some quiet here. I'm trying to fly a seven hundred ton space ship with what is essentially my watch."

"Whatever," Kaidan said, "How long before we can get up?"

"I would wait until we make atmosphere," said Joker, "So about twenty minutes."

"Fine," he sighed.

…

Unknown Frigate: Same Place Twenty Minutes Later

"OK, we are about to hit atmosphere," Joker said, "And judging by the fact that we haven't been shot at I would say everything's go well so far."

"I'm heading to the rear hatch," said Ashley, getting up, "Try to make it a little inconspicuous."

"I'll swing around wide and drop you off at the top of one of the buildings," replied Joker, getting up himself, "Once you have everything set in place just send the signal and we can get the fireworks started. In the mean time I'm heading to the bridge. Might be nice to use some actual controls for a bit."

Arriving at the hanger Ashley began to so a final check over her gear. One Covenant Beam Rifle, one Energy Sword, fifteen concussive shock bombs, a few fragmentation grenades, and a pair of magnetic gloves. Magnetic Gloves are exactly what one would assume from its name, they are gloves that can produce a powerful magnetic field. Originally made for use in space operations it was quickly adopted by black-ops personal. Nowhere near the strength require to suspend a person off the ground, but enough to augment a persons natural grip.

"Whenever you're ready Joker," she said.

"Yeah, yeah," came Jokers reply," Just picking a good building."

"No windows near the drop point if possible," she said, "And Shepard get to work on moving the bodies."

"I'm getting Kaidan to help this time," he said back.

"That was the plan," she replied.

"I've got a building that's sending off a large amount of signals," said Joker, "Their communications seem to propagate at FTL speeds in real space. No wonder we couldn't pick this stuff up they don't even use what we do."

"That's very interesting," Ashley said, sarcastically, "Now how about you open this thing up so I can get going."

"Right," he replied as he began opening the hatch, "There you go."

Turning she looked outside the now opening hatch in order to get her first real glimpse of the city. Towering buildings filled the skyline as flying vehicles flew between them below.

She then saw the building that Joker had seen, it was taller then a great number of the other building and had what could best be described as a satellite dish on the top.

"I'll be back in an hour," she said, "Try not to kill each other."

Taking a small running start Ashley jumped out of the moving ship and grabbed onto the metal bars holding the satellite dish in place. Quickly working her way down the metal cross bars she hid behind the dish itself well she looked for a cable or some kind of access panel. Finding the cable was simple enough as it was connected directly into the back of the satellite.

Taking her knife out she cut the casing of the wire off exposing a multitude of wire of wires inside. Finally deciding to take the blue one she stripped it further and connected it to a bridge device. Finishing that she moved to the side of the building and jump down to a ledge below before getting a running start and leaping towards the next building.

…

Unknown Frigate: In Dock

"That's the end of that," said Shepard, "Thank god."

Having served their purpose making the ship appear manned it was decided to move the crew into the escape pods onboard so when they eventually had to leave they could drop the crew off.

"Well now what?" asked Kaidan, sitting in the mess hall's chair.

"We still have a good forty minutes before this decontaminations over," he responded, sitting down himself, "And until that's over it's no one in no one out, so I guess we just wait."

"Asides from moving some body's we've been doing that for close too twelve hours," Kaidan sigh, yawning, "You want to go search through that pile of guns?"

"Damn right," responded Shepard, standing abruptly, "And next time I get the fun mission."

"I though the space jump was your fun mission," he asked, standing himself.

"Yes and no," he answered, "It was fun but if I had known the next part would be infiltrating the city I would have gone for that."

"To be fair she did a good job infiltrating that compound," Kaidan said, "I mean, I guess we can have some fun interrogating those five people we have on the Incursion."

"Oh I bet we will," said Shepard, "I mean we could count the number of prisoners from the Covenant war on one hand."

"What's this one?" asked Kaidan, picking up one of the longer weapons.

"From what I can tell it's a sniper," he said, "Its got an optical scope on top."

"I might just keep this," Kaidan said, "You never know when it might be useful."

…

Unknown Planet: Unknown City

'There it is,' thought Ashley, 'Now to get in.'

Having already planted one device on the satellite dish, she quickly found a second target, a very large building that spanned entire city blocks. If looked to her as if it was some kind of government building as it had a large open field around it. Looking around she saw couldn't see any kind of obvious way to get to the building as it was separated from everything nearby and the ground was covered by cameras.

Looking through the scope of her Beam Rifle Ashley began to look for blind spots in the cameras coverage and how the guards patrolled the area. Due to the fact that she only had forty minutes left she had already decided to plant the third device on the dock control tower. This way she could kill two birds with one stone as she already had to move around the building to plant the concussive shock bombs.

The camera cover was complete, she concluded. So any distraction would have to be made by her. Scanning the area she saw three different cameras watching the area of approach that she had decided to use. Along with the cameras there were two guards in the area at all time. When one moves off into the second part of its patrol another moves back into the area from another part of its own.

'I don't need all fifteen of these,' she though, looking into her bag, 'Plant some on the buildings to the left and the right and time the explosions to cover my shots.'

Looking to the sides she saw that the building to the left had a large number of 'glass' windows giving it a very artistic look.

'Maybe just the left,' she though, 'Nothing like the sound of glass shattering to draw peoples attention.'

Moving back into the shadow's she went back upwards towards the roofs to find a way across to the next building.

…

Unknown Frigate: In Dock

"I can't take it any longer," said Shepard, who was now laying on the table in the mess hall, "Why can't they board us or something."

"Can you not just wait patiently like Joker," asked Kaidan, "I mean how did you last those five hours on the med tables."

"Knowing that everyone else was in the same situation helped, but now I'm stuck here knowing Ashley's out having the time of her life," he responded, "And Joker's having a jolly old time looking around the ship so its not like he's lacking things to do."

"Go play with your new toys then," he said, "I mean it's a huge pile of guns."

"We can't be sure that they wont pick up the weapon fire," said Shepard, "Otherwise I would be."

Seconds past in silence as neither person said anything.

"Want to go loot the armoury for some shielded suits?" he asked.

"Think we could steal those?" asked Shepard, leaning up, "I mean all the elite stuff had fail safes on it."

"Only one way to tell," he said, walking away.

"Ah, you learn quickly Kaidan," he replied.

…

Unknown Planet: Unknown City

Returning to her original position Ashley raised her beam in preparation for the next part of her plan.

'Five bombs, five shots,' she thought, 'No room for error.'

The trigger to the bombs had been set to have a ten second delay and a three second delay between blasts allowing the Beam Rifle to cool down in-between each shot. Picking up the detonator with her left hand, she kept the rifle clutched in her right, she pressed the button before attaching it to her belt and aiming down her weapons sights quickly.

The first, second and third shot were to take out the cameras with the fourth and fifth to take out the central guard and the one to the right.

It only took one bomb to completely shatter the 'glass' window. As a distraction it worked beautifully as there wasn't a single person in the area looking at the camera as she shot it. The second bomb was placed on a secondary support strut on the right side of the building in a dark ally. This one wouldn't cause as large a distraction as the first but it, in combination with the third one, would serve to cause large amounts of superficial damage to the building.

With perfect timing she destroyed both of the other cameras as each shot was masked by the sound of the building collapsing.

Both of the next bombs were placed on the back corners, left and right respectively, to in the hopes of tripping the alarms of the near by building and to make it look like entire building was collapsing, but as all the bombs were placed on the outside of the building it was very unlikely.

But this part of the plan was important for a second reason. She knew from experience with the first alien that their shields could stop a single round from a UNSC sniper. Her hope was that a Covenant sniper would be able to not only break the shield but also kill the person it was defending. Quickly finding the right guard she sighted the head of the alien and pulled the trigger. She had to give the Covenant credit, as the 'bullet' fired by the rifle wasn't made of matter like a UNCS weapon, as it was actually made out of ionized particles, it was unaffected by both gravity and the wind. This meant that if you sighted the head of a target your round was going to hit the head of the target.

Taking less then a fraction of a second to cover the ground between her and the target the beam immediately vaporised a small hole in the beings head. Though slightly surprised by this Ashley wasted no time in targeting the second guard and giving it much the same treatment.

With all five of the bombs detonated the outer shell of the building began to collapse under its own weight. Seeing this as her best opportunity Ashley jump down and began to run across the open field between her and the building drawing her energy sword as she went with the intentions of cutting through the wall to avoid any cameras that might be watching the doors.

…

Unknown Frigate: In Dock

"These suits are weird," said Shepard, "I mean are these people really shaped like this?"

"Not everyone can be human," commented Kaidan, "I mean the what about the grunts and those hunter things."

"I don't think we ever tried to steal their armor," Shepard said, "So I see that as irrelevant to this conversation."

"Well who cares, we can just bring these back and find, then strip out the shields and work on getting them in our armor," he said, "I mean it would probably be a little more complicated then that but I hear AI's like a challenge."

"Why didn't we do that with the elite stuff?" he asked, "I mean those could have been useful."

"They still are trying to do that," Kaidan said, "But they don't have enough of them to put them on everyone if they did it like this, but seeing as its just you, me, and Ashley who need them we could."

"Ya, ignore the marines on board," replied Shepard, "They don't need them."

"Well if it keep's up like this they wont," he said simply, "I mean how often are we going to get boarded? And what's this thing?" he asked, holding up a small metal disk.

"Put it in the 'who knows' pile," Shepard said, "We can deal with it later."

"Only another twenty minutes," said Kaidan.

Unknown Planet: Unknown City

'Now I just have to find something to put it on,' thought Ashley, after having entered the building through a hole she cut in the wall.

Currently she was staying in the side rooms hoping to avoid any guards that might be patrolling the corridors. Approaching the door to the next room she could hear a constant soft humming. Opening automatically to her presence the door slid to the side revealing a large cluster of computers and a technician working on them. The technician looked up upon hearing the door open only to see Ashley standing there in full ODST armor holding an energy sword.

The technician paused for a brief second before screaming and trying to run away. Not wasting anytime Ashley lunged forward stabbing the technician with both points on her sword before sweeping it to the right, killing him instantly. She immediacy went to work cutting off the case of the computer tower.

At this point she knew that anything planted here would be found quickly, but she had decided that the possible information gained from this would be worth it. As such she decided to hook the pin of a fragmentation grenade around the device so if and when it was removed it would not be taken into enemy hands.

Leaving the way she came she glimpsed at the body on the ground. She felt no remorse for what happened. When it came to finishing her mission a few civilian casualties wouldn't stop her.

…

Unknown Frigate: In Dock

"I raise you three assault rifles," said Shepard.

Having run out of things to do again Shepard and Kaidan began playing poker using the different weapons and objects that they had found onboard to bet with. Neither of them had seen Joker in nearly forty minutes and they just assumed he was looking around the ship, much like they had.

"I'll raise you this disk thing," said Kaidan, putting forward the odd object he had found in the armoury.

"We don't even know what that is," said Shepard, "and I don't think it's worth more then three assault rifles."

"Well I already have a bunch of assault rifles," Kaidan said, "But I have only seen one of these."

"Maybe its just a paper weight," he said sighing, "Forget it, I'll keep my assault rifles then. So, how much longer?"

"About ten minutes," said Kaidan.

"And then the fireworks begin," Shepard said, grinning.

…

Unknown Planet: Unknown City

Having finished planting the second device Ashley had quickly traversed the city to the docks. It wasn't hard to find it seeing as multiple ships could be seen coming down from, and going back into, space from the area. The only problem was that there was a large amount of security in the area. So the plan was simple, she was just going to throw all the bombs into the ground surrounding the area and detonate it at the same time that the orbital distraction began. She hoped that the ground detonation would cause a large number of the security personal to leave the building so that after she was picked up she could plant a bridge on the roof to monitor fleet traffic.

She still had five minutes until the time ran out and all hell broke lose. So until then she moved back into the shadows to wait.

…

The Incursion: Orbiting Planet

"Five minutes captain," reported Asya, "Shall we begin preparations?"

"Yes," he replied, "Drop cloak, power up the slipspace drive, and charge the MAC."

"Think it will survive?" asked Pressly, "I mean this could be our single most important bit of intelligence yet."

"Hostile ship are approaching," Asya said, "Contact in ten minutes."

"That's too late to stop this," Anderson said, "Send the signal to the ground team and fire when ready."

Five minutes later it began. As always, a small shutter passing through the ship was all that was felt when the ship fired it's MAC weapon. At such extreme distances it took over six seconds for the MAC round to reach it's target.

The single large ship in orbit around the planet was, unbeknownst to them, a dreadnought class ship. The ship turned it's engines as high as it could in an attempt to avoid being hit by the incoming fire, to minimal effect. All it accomplished was avoiding being sheared in half by the round as it instead impacted the ship in the rear. Smashing through the extremely powerful, relative to them, shields in under a second it continued into the ship itself unhindered, immediately shredding a large portion of the hull before ripping out the back of the ship to continue its journey through space.

"Jump to the rendezvous place now," said Anderson.

"I would say that's a successful weapons test," added Pressly.

…

Unknown planet: Unknown City

'It's game time,' though Ashley as she saw the timer reach zero.

Throwing the bag containing all the bombs off the building she grabbed the detonator off the ground next to her. Four seconds later, once the bag had hit the ground, she pressed the button casing a massive explosion that sent shockwaves throughout the area. Moments later a loud siren was heard at the same time that a larger number of ships lifted off.

'That's probably the spatial distraction,' she thought.

"This is Joker to the Ground… Person," came the call over the radio, "Where are you?"

"South side of the building," she replied, "I need to be dropped off at the top of the docks before we head out."

"Got it," he said.

It was easy for Ashley to pick out which ship was under their control seeing as it immediately ripped out of the docking clamps used to hold it in place. Before beginning it's approach towards her well opening the rear hatch.

It took less then ten seconds for Joker to bring the ship to Ashley's position allowing her to grab onto the ledge of the hanger well he flew towards the top of the dock.

Letting go as soon as possible Ashley rolled to upon contacting the roof before she took off running towards the satellite dish array in front of her well Joker moved the frigate towards the other side of the building. Knowing time was limited Ashley skipped cutting into the wire carefully and setting up the last bridge and simply cut all the wires in the general area with her sword well running towards the other side of the building. Reaching it she jumped into the frigates open hatch.

"Lets go Joker!" called Shepard over the radio, seeing that Ashley was now aboard.

Wasting no time Joker began closing the hatch well beginning to take off to towards the open space above. Ejecting all the escape pods full of the original crew members at the same time.

"At least everything went according to plan this time," said Joker, as they left atmosphere.

"Hey Shepard you might want to see this," he called on the radio before sending a video to Shepard's suit.

Opening it Shepard saw the now smashed dreadnought losing altitude and falling towards the planet. It was almost a beautiful sight as a large amount fire was seen flying off the lower parts of the ship that were entering the atmosphere.

"If we weren't at war before," said Shepard, "We will be once that thing hits."

"Yeah," added Kaidan, "But at least we know we can take on of them in a fight."

"The real threat seems to be large numbers of the weaker ones," said Joker, "We simply couldn't hit them. Anyway I'm seeing the Incursion now so we should be out of here quick."

The rally point was on the other side of the planet as it was, accurately, predicted that the ships would move towards the location that they had shot the dreadnought from. This left many open security gaps on the other side of the planet that the frigate could pass through.

"OK, we are onboard," said Joker, "They are prepping for a jump to the 7th planets orbit, so we can expect to have some time off from here."

…

The Incursion: Orbit Of The Seventh Planet Six Hours Later

"The networking lock down has been lifted captain," Asya said, "Beginning to record everything they send over bugged wires."

After the attack on the planet all the civilian networks on the planet had been shutdown by the military.

"Find out what they are saying about the attack first of all," Anderson asked.

"Already done," she said, "There's a lot of news going around so I'll open up some now."

The image changed to that of an female alien with what looked like tentacles coming our of its head, an Asari if the translations were right, standing outside of the planets docks.

"Yet another attack was committed by the Geth today," she started, "But this time the target wasn't a small colony on the edge of the veil. This time the Geth launched their attack on the largely populated world of Illium."

"Geth?" asked Pressly, "Is that what they call us?"

"No," Asya said with a confused look on her face, "The term 'Geth' is used by these people to describe a race of machines. Why would they think they attacked?"

"Let it play," said Anderson.

"Unlike the previous attacks this was carried out single-handedly by the Geth dreadnought and its super weapon," she said as the image changed to that of the _Incursion_, "Due to the different markings of this dreadnought when compared to the other it has been decided that it is highly likely that the Geth are in control of more then one of such a ship and it powerful weapon."

The image changed to that of both the _Incursion_ and of a second ship.

"Pause," Anderson practically yelled, "Is that what I think it is?"

"No way in hell," added Pressly.

The second ship, well being a different color entirely, was still unmistakably a UNSC frigate.

"Asya," asked Anderson, "Is that picture real?"

"From what I can tell," she said, pausing for a second, "It is."

"Find more on the Geth," Anderson asked, "If they have had some kind of interaction with the UNSC I would think we would know."

"This is the first such an attack where the dreadnought has been without its support fleet," said the reporter, continuing, "It is theorized that this was the only reason that Illium had survived the attack."

"Are they destroying planets with MAC weapons?" asked Pressly, "I mean if they are then its no surprise that they attacked us."

"We need to repaint the ship," said Anderson, "Asya, contact everyone onboard. Both of the last two operations never happened and the ship shall be referred to as a dreadnought from this point on."

"Nothing like a good cover up," Pressly said, "And if this is a dreadnought to them then they are in for a surprise if this becomes a war."

"These 'Geth' are using a UNSC ship to fight a large scale war against an alliance of multiple different species," he said, "If we come into this like we are helping them, even after they attacked us, then we can maintain the moral high ground if negotiations begin."

"How… ONI of you," said Pressly, "Anyway I'm going off shift. We can go over the rest of this once we have more recorded."

"Agreed," he said, "Asya get as much information as you can about these 'Geth'.

"It's top priority," she said, "And Chakwas is requesting your attendance in the medical bay. The alien has woken up."

…

Authors Note

I don't really have much to say. At over 9500 words this makes it the longest chapter yet.

BEFORE anyone says anything about the whole neural interface thing. I needed some kind of a plot device to explain how the people can understand each other so live with it.

How did the Geth get a UNSC Frigate? Good question.

Will killing thousands of civilians come back to bite them in the ass? Better question.

What the fuck is going on? Best question.

Kaidan: As it is impossible for Kaidan to be a biotic he is instead half combat half tech

Don't expect every chapter to be this long. Each one is as long or short as it needs to be, for instance the 7th chapter is looking at somewhere close too 15000 words.

It has come to my attention that a UNSC MAC weapon would be an unstoppable weapon of death in the mass effect universe. I'm not going to try to down play its power at all. It IS an unstoppable weapon of death.

To Dusel: After having been almost driven to extinction the humans aren't going to take crap from anyone. As far as they could tell at the time, they shot first. To quote a different reviewer humanity views it like a "Never Again" kind of thing. And at the end they did find out that it was a mistake and are now trying to fix it. By denying that it ever happened. As for the covenant being the ones who killed civilians... Remember that the UNSC had tried to send a NOVA bomb to a covenant planet on more then one occasion, and I'm pretty sure they knew there would be civilians.

To tamahome8: hayst?

Next chapter is the one that I have been hoping to avoid. The visit to the citadel. This will be incredibly hard to write without having it make little to no sense as they are an unknown race who has so far killed 1000+ people. Getting onto the citadels is not going to be easy to have work.

Also, everyone go read Left hand turn signals stories. He is the single reason I decided to attempt to write my own story. He's my BFF now. (That sounds kind of creepy considering he doesn't know me)

Next Chapter Title

Familiar Faces And Familiar Places

Release Date: They opened salmon fishing for the first time in 3 years! I've been murdering a lot of fish so there was a small delay. (Over 30 so far!) SO i'm going to get this chapter out before school starts in 2 days THAT IS A GUARANTEE. I seem to update once, then again quickly, then gone for a week or two. So expect the one after this one to be fast 06/09/2010

Current Word Count: 8000 LAST PART RIGHT NOW


	5. Familiar Faces

The Incursion: Lower Deck, Hallway

The medical bay onboard the Incursion located in the rear. There are two main reasons for this. One, most ship to ship combat has the front of the ship facing the enemy, leaving it vulnerable to attack, and second, all ground teams being brought back up from the surface would have to go through the hanger, which is also located in the back of the ship.

'Time to make a good impression,' thought Anderson, straitening his shirt, 'Hopefully this will go better then the…'

"Security team to the medical bay!" called a voice over the intercom, cutting off his thoughts, "Repeat security team to the medical bay!"

Seeing that the area in question was just down the hall from him Anderson removed his M6G pistol from his holster and began advancing quickly down the hall. Normally he would leave such a job to the aforementioned security teams, but by the time they got here something could have happened, and there are no replacements for lost crew members in unknown space.

Leaning up against the wall next to the door Anderson put his hand in front of the door, triggering its sensors and opening the door, before swinging around with his gun raised. The sight before him surprised him.

Inside the security officer assigned to guard the alien laid unconscious, or dead, on the ground with multiple medical instruments scattered on the floor around him. Chakwas and the three other assistants on staff were crouched behind the medical tables closer to the door.

"Captain, very back right side," called Chakwas, motioning towards that area.

The medical bay was equipped with six tables, three on each side. On the opposite side of the room from the door was a separate office for Chakwas herself, being the senior medical officer.

Nodding Anderson crouched low and began moving between the tables and, never lowering his weapon for a second, stopped at the downed guard to see if he was still alive. Finding a pulse he motioned to the medical personal to come and take him back. After only a moment of hesitation two of the assistants moved over and began to pull the body back.

Raising up slightly he put his gun over the table aimed towards the back corner. Not seeing any movement, or any kind of action at all, he simply waited. Less then a minute later the security team arrived.

Each security team was composed of four people, each one a veteran of the UNSC-Covenant war. Over the entire ship there were eight teams. Four posted permanently in vital areas, slipspace drive, MAC weapon, the bridge, and the central cloaking generator, and three patrolling the ship with one on break.

Not wasting any time Anderson pointed towards the closest two and pointed towards the table on the other side of the room from him. He then motioned for one to help the medics move the man on the ground and the for the last one to prepare a flash bang.

In less the ten seconds everyone was in position and ready to recapture the alien. Being the only one, not including the non combatants, to not have a polarisable visor and some kind of hearing protection Anderson was instead reduced to simply closing his eyes and covering his ears as best he could as he gave the signal to begin.

As expected of a well trained and experienced military team the next actions seemed to flow into each other. The marine in the back threw the flash bang and raised his battle rifle as the other two behind the table began to jump over it.

Anderson himself, after the flash bang went off, moved around the table just in time too see the two men simultaneously strip the alien of its weapon, a side arm taken from the guard, and secure its arms behind its back.

It was obvious that the alien was saying something, but Anderson understood nothing that it might have been saying.

"Sir," said one of the marines, having removed his helmet, "Asya wants me to pass this too you."

In his hand was the ear piece of his radio. Anderson took it out of his hands and put it on. He immediately noticed that it was repeating what the alien was 'saying'.

"Hold on a second," said Asya over the headset, "Initiating translation software now."

"Bosh'tet!" the alien yelled, still struggling to escape its bonds.

"Wonderful translation Asya," he commented.

"That word is composed of sounds that I haven't seen in any of the recordings," she said defensively, "It's possible that it is part of other language."

"What about it understanding us?" he asked.

"There is something on its left hand that allows it remotely connect to external devices," she stated, "So I simply used it to upload the same translation software."

"So it can hear me right now?" he asked well looking towards it.

"No," she replied, "I can turn it on at any time."

"Start it as soon as you can," he said, "Let's see if we can't clear up some stuff."

"Starting it now," she said, "Good luck."

Looking towards the alien he tried to think of the best thing to say first.

"Lower your weapons," he said to his men, motioning downward.

'Threatening it a little less might help,' he thought.

It seemed to recognize this as it stop fighting the guards and instead looked in his direction. The odd 'smoke' that filled its helmet made it difficult to determine where it was looking.

"Judging by the fact that you reacted to that I assume you can understand me?" he asked, only to be meet with silence as it simply continued to stare at him. Seeing that it wasn't going too respond he continued, "I know you might be scared, you woke up in a place you have never seen surrounded by people and things you have never seen, but incapacitating the guard and taking his gun was unnecessary."

"Don't patronize me," it, a she he noticed, said, voice dripping with malice, "I was THERE when you attacked the colony, so my reaction was COMPLETELY justified."

"There was a slight misunderstanding," he said, sighing.

"That DOESN'T change what happened," she all but yelled, "That slight misunderstanding caused the deaths of a half dozen people!"

'Of course she wouldn't know of what happened after…' he though sadly, 'Time to try another tactic."

"It still doesn't change the fact you have a large infection spreading throughout your body," he said, remaining calm, "And without your cooperation we might not be able to help you."

At this the alien paused. Lifting its left arm a large orange 'gauntlet' formed which it began to touch with its other hand. Less then a second later four separate guns were now pointing at it. This time Anderson didn't wave them off.

"Critical suit containment failure," came a computer generated voice from the 'gauntlet', "N2R-4 type bacteria detected, seek medical attention."

The 'gauntlet' dissipated as she moved her left hand towards her stomach in silence before a long string of words could be heard. Either Asya couldn't, or just didn't translate these words but their meaning was clear.

"Do you have ANY idea what that means!" she yelled, "Even a class four infection could be fatal without immediate medial attention!"

"Yes, we are aware of your condition," he said, "Our chief doctor is already looking into a cure."

She paused, seeming to contemplate that.

"What kind of misunderstanding?" she asked.

"About a week and a half ago over a dozen ships came into our sovereign space and attacked two of our dreadnoughts. They destroyed one before retreating back through the same object they arrived from," he explained.

"But the force recon mission only encountered Geth forces…" she said, more to herself then anyone else before growing silent towards the end.

"They only encountered us," Anderson replied, "But from what we have found so far they might have been confused as well."

"Explain," she asked inquisitively.

"Not now," he said, "First we have to deal with the fact that your slowly dying."

"Not much that can be done," she said, sighing, "It's too late to do anything about an infection this advanced, even if I had the best of our medical equipment within reach we could only slow it down."

"Asya's already working on creating some 'genetically engineering modified hunter killer white blood cells' to stop this infection," he said simply, "But I'm no doctor."

"Aseha?" she asked, trying to pronounce the odd word.

"Asya's is the smart AI assigned to this ship," he replied, it wasn't classified information so he saw no problem in saying it.

Her reaction noticeably changed as she began to move backwards into the corner.

"AI?" she asked, visibly shocked even through the smoky helmet she wore.

"I should have warned you about that one…" commented Asya, "From what I'm seeing these 'Quarians' are the ones who built the Geth."

"That could have been useful information about ten seconds ago, Asya" he said, "So I thank you for your impeccable timing."

"I only found that out a minute ago," she said, "I'm getting new information from these bugs every second."

"Yes, AI," he said, looking back at the 'Quarian' "Is that going to be a problem?"

"Just keep it away from me," she said, "I want nothing to do with any AI's."

"She's the only one who would even have a chance of finishing it before it's too late," he said, "So you can either help her, or accept your fate."

"I would rather die then give an AI any information on my people," she said.

"That is the alternative," he stated, "But I wont allow that. We need information on the Geth and ,from what I hear, your race built them."

"Why do you care about the Geth?" she asked.

"The 'Geth' dreadnought and its super weapon are both property of the UNSC," he said, "And as such we are going to either retrieve it, or destroy it."

"UNSC?" she asked.

"If you want to know anymore then your going to have help us save you first," he said.

He knew he had the alien at this point, he could see its curiosity even through the odd mask it wore.

"Fine," she said bitterly, "But I expect some answers if and when this works."

"And if and when it works then I'm sure there are a lot of thing we can discuss," he said, "Until then the security team is going to stay here to watch over things."

Looking at the marines he saw them nod in recognition of his orders. Nodding himself he turned to leave the room as the marines moved to the corners of the room.

"Now that that's over can you please return to your bed?" asked Chakwas, quickly regaining her professional attitude.

Standing slowly the alien moved towards the same medical table she had been on when she regained conscious.

"You never did say your name," Chakwas said, after putting on a headset herself so she could understand what she said.

"It's Tali," she replied simply.

"Just Tali?" she asked back.

"It's all you need to know," 'Tali' said.

"Well then," Chakwas began, "About your condition…"

…

The Incursion: Medical Bay, An Hour Later

"You fought on Sigma Octanus IV?" asked Ashley.

"Yeah, it was hell down there," replied Shepard, "But not being turned to glass was a major victory in my book."

"How did you make it off the planet alive?" she inquired, "I thought almost everyone died during the covenant ground attacks.'

"I was bunkered down in firebase Alpha when they hit," he explained, "Me and a few other men held out in the lower chambers until the Spartans arrived."

"Ah yes, it's always the Spartans," she said frowning.

"It's one thing to hear these story's about them and think 'I bet that was exaggerated' and 'I could do that'," he said, "But honestly, no, before they arrived we had resigned ourselves for dead and simply wanted to take as many of the bastards with us as possible. But the Spartans, they just killed them all. Forces that I wouldn't engage even with a full squad of ODST they fought and killed single-handedly. I mean they earned their right to be called the best."

It was a well known fact that most ODST hated the Spartans because they took their place as the most elite of the UNSC forces.

"Makes you wonder what we could do if everyone had their modifications," she said.

"The war would have been much less one sided that for sure," he said.

Entering the room with a folder in her hands Chakwas looked around the room to see both Shepard and Ashley talking with each other. She quickly moved over and put a hand on Shepard's shoulder to gain his attention. Looking up Shepard saw her motion her head towards the alien he had captured who was trying, and failing, to look like she wasn't paying attention. She then tapped her ears in an attempt to signify that she could hear them. Shepard and Ashley seemed to catch this as they nodded themselves.

"Now you two are here for the language implant, correct?" Chakwas asked, seeing them nod she continued, "Shouldn't Kaidan be here for it too?"

"Captain wants all available technicians to assist in the research being done on the other ship," Shepard said, "And apparently Kaidan knows enough about it to get assigned down there."

"I'm sure he can get it later then," she replied, "Anyway we're looking at about four days for a complete burn in."

"Only four days?" asked Ashley.

"We are only adding on to what you already know so it takes a significantly less time then if we were too, say, add a new proficiency at flying pelicans," she explained.

"Not to mention that Joker would kill us in our sleep," said Shepard, shrugging his shoulders, "Anyway the sooner it starts the faster it will be done."

"OK, lay back and breathe," she said as she began hooking up IV's to both of them.

The IV was simply a mixture of sedatives, nutrients, and other various thing required for the four days of sleep.

"Asya, begin whenever your ready," she added.

"Starting now," Asya replied, just as Shepard slipped into unconsciousness.

Moving back up the path between the tables she arrived at the table that their alien guest was occupying.

"I have good news," she started, "Ironically the fact that your immune system is just weak makes this much simpler as we don't have to worry about any complications from some other kind of disease. So this should work"

"Wait…" Tali asked, temporarily forgetting what she had just heard, "You mean you actually made it?"

"Well we made it, yes," she said, "But as for it working? Only time will tell."

"But… how?" she asked, apparently stunned.

"We took some of your normal white blood cells so that after Asya had finished mapping your genome we could modify them to better attack these specific bacteria," she explained as she handed the small vial to her "After that it was just a matter of flash cloning it in large quantities. They wont last very long but they should do the job."

Turning the small vial in her hands Tali simply stared at it.

"And as for food," she began, "All we could do was clone some nutrient paste. Not much to it but it should keep you alive for now."

"Believe me, I'm used to it," she said drearily as she added the medicine to her suits built in medical system. It beeped once in confirmation and began to slowly inject the drug in response to the infection currently in her body.

"Any questions then?" she asked.

"One," Tali began, "What were they talking about?"

Seeing that she was quite clearly pointing towards Shepard and Ashley Chakwas could only sigh.

"What did he mean by 'being turned to glass' and what's is this 'spartan' he was talking about?" she asked.

"That's not something I should be telling you about…" she began.

"I was promised answers if I cooperated," she reminded her as she crossed her arms.

"Yes, the Captain promised you answers," she said, "And you can get them from him."

"Can you at least tell me why they are here now?" she asked.

"Well," Chakwas began, she didn't see any problem in explaining the basics of it. She was going to see the results in a few days anyway, "They are having your language uploaded into their head so they can communicate with the locals."

"Is that really possible?" Tali asked, doubtful.

"It's risky but wholly possible," she explained, "That's why we still like to do things the old fashioned way when possible."

Tali just stared at the two people laying on the tables.

'Implanting information directly into someone's head, creation and use of AI's, and genetically engineering white blood cells to fight disease?' she though, baffled that the things she was seeing around her, 'Granted the Salarians could probably do the genetic engineering, but nowhere near that fast.'

Slowly an idea began to form in her head. It was widely believed that the Salarians could solve their immune system problems if it wasn't for that fact that they would have nothing to do with them.

'But these people seem to want our help with the Geth…' she thought with a smile, 'I might be able to finish my pilgrimage quicker them I thought.'

'But then there's that AI…' she though bitterly. She didn't hate the AI, she simply didn't trust it. 'Well if this works then they wont know it had any part in helping our people, and if they find out later then they might not care.'

She decided against any further internal deliberation as she instead opted to go to sleep.

'Hopefully these 'drugs' will work…' she thought, as she began falling asleep.

…

The Incursion: Bridge Nine Hours Later

"The new scans Chakwas took look good," said Asya, "As long as the cells don't die off before they finish destroying the bacteria then she's in the clear."

"That just leaves one last thing," said Pressly, "Where do we go from here? Again."

"That is a question that comes up often," added Asya.

"We need to find these 'Geth' wherever they are," said Anderson.

"The only way we could get reliable information on them would be from the military," Asya said, "And none of the lines we have tapped are military."

"Going back down would be suicide," Anderson said, "The defence fleet will no doubt be alert for the next few days, if not weeks."

"Well we have to go somewhere with a military presence," Pressly said, "What about this 'Citadel' we have been hearing so much about?"

"That's a bad idea if I might say so Captain," interjected Asya, "The citadel is a massive space station so any attempt to get in would be caught quite easily."

"How big is it?" asked Pressly.

"Almost forty-four kilometres across," she said as she brought up a picture of it, "Civilian population of almost seventeen million."

"This looks vaguely familiar," said Anderson, "Forerunner?"

"No," she replied, "The technology is completely different. But you are right about one thing, from what I'm seeing they didn't build it."

"Let me guess," said Pressly, sighing, "A long extinct, hyper advanced alien race built it?"

"Hit the nail on the head," she replied, "You think it would be surprising or something."

"With such a large civilian population they can't completely secure the inside of the station," Anderson said, continuing regardless, "So if we can get past it then they should be able to move around relatively easily."

"We also thought that they couldn't secure an entire planet," replied Pressly, "And they did."

"We need someone with first hand experience," Anderson said, "And only one of the prisoners is talking."

The four 'Turians', as they had learn they were called, had regained consciousness hours ago but despite their attempts at communication, or maybe because of it, they had all refused to say anything.

All four of them simply sat in silence, not saying a word.

"Yes, because she was so talkative before," said Pressly, sarcastically, "What with the grabbing the gun and all"

"We did save her life," added Asya, "She might be a little more open."

"What makes you think we can trust what she says anyway?" protested Pressly, "She could just as easily lead us into a trap."

"Confirming what she says wouldn't be as hard as going in blind," she replied.

"Nothing says we even have to try!" he insisted, "It would be much simpler to just go find some random outpost in the middle of nowhere."

"We couldn't be sure that it would have the information we need," said Anderson, "Being the main hub of their government would assure that it has the information we need. Not to mention that she might just tell us that it's impossible and then this entire debate would be pointless."

"Shall I ask for her to meet us in the briefing room then?" asked Asya.

"We can at least hear what she has to say, if anything," said Anderson.

…

The Incursion: Medical Bay

"We have orders to bring you to the briefing room," said a marine, "So please follow me."

Looking towards a second guard he motioned towards the door before heading out himself. Seeing that she was in no position to refuse Tali followed the guard out of the room and down the hall.

'How big is this ship?' she thought, seeing that the hallway they were in easily stretched a hundred meters away, 'It's easily bigger then a frigate, so is it a cruiser? Bigger?'

Briefly she considered using her Omni-Tool to scan the ship, but decided against it as the two guards she was with might take it as a hostile action.

'Though I could probably take at least one down before they could even drop my barriers,' she though, 'It is such an odd technological mixture, hyper advanced computing but combustion based weapons? Advanced cloning and genetic manipulation but no kinetic barriers in sight?'

Her curiosity was the only reason she had agreed to cooperate up until this point, that and being cured from a deadly illness.

"Just wait inside," the lead guard said as he and the second guard took up positions on either side of a door, "The captain should be here soon."

Entering the room she looked around only to see that it was completely empty except for a number of chair throughout the room. Upon hearing the door close behind her she took the opportunity to use her Omni-Tool to learn something about the ship.

'The link that AI used to upload the translation software is still open,' she thought mischievously, 'Time to see what I can get.'

…

The Incursion: Hallway

"Captain," called Asya, over the headset he had on, "The aliens taking her time alone to attempting to hack into our systems."

"Can you stop it?" Anderson asked.

"Easily," she replied, "Do you want me too?"

"Actually, no," he said, "Just prevent her from accessing anything related to the covenant, slipspace, our ship numbers and details, specifics on the MAC and the location of, and the number of, our planets."

"You sure that's a good idea?" asked Pressly, who was currently walking beside him.

"Firstly, it means we have to explain less later," he said, "Secondly, as long as she thinks she can crack our security then we can maintain the upper hand."

"Well, we'll see wont we," said Pressly, "Shall we take the long route then?"

…

The Incursion: Briefing Room

'No element zero!' she thought, 'No viable FTL!'

Having spend the better part of the last ten minutes searching through the archives on the ship saying she was surprised by what she say was an understatement.

'Though it does prove one thing,' she thought, slouching back in the chair she was sitting in, 'This MAC weapon matches what the Geth are using. But how can they travel without some kind of FTL?'

She idly continued searching through the data base.

'Why is there so little information on the ship itself?' she thought, 'There are little to no details on the operation of any of the main systems. That doesn't make any sense! Unless… they know I'm in the system.'

She couldn't suppress the wave of paranoia that suddenly washed over her as she shifted her gaze around the room looking for some kind of camera.

'Its probably that AI,' she thought, 'Watching everything I'm doing.'

She quickly dissipated the Omni-Tool as two people entered the room, one she recognized as the Captain from their brief encounter but the other was completely new to her.

"This is my second in command Pressly," he said, "And my name is Anderson. From what I hear you go by the name Tali?"

"Tali is fine," she said.

"Alright," Anderson continued, "We have a lot to talk about."

"Yes," she replied, "But where do we start."

"Start simple," he said, taking a seat, "We ask a question, then you ask a question."

"Fine, I'll start," she replied, "How do you achieve FTL travel without the use of element zero."

"We have obtained viable FTL travel through the manipulation of slipstream space," said Pressly.

"Slipstream space?" Tali questioned.

"Our turn," replied Anderson, "What are the security protocols for ships docking on the 'Citadel'."

"And why do you want to know that?" she looked at them questioningly. She didn't particularly care what they did to the Citadel due to recent events, but she still wished to know.

"I'll count that as your next question," he said, "But we are simply wanting to gather some Intel, we don't wish to kill anyone."

"I don't care," she said, sighing, "Each ship is externally decontaminated and everyone coming on too or off of the ship is also decontaminated. After that there is a small checkpoint before you enter the main area of the Citadel."

"Why don't you care?" asked Pressly.

"I'm counting that as your next question too," she replied, "With the Geth now attacking entire colonies the Council's relation with my people has only gone downhill. It isn't uncommon for pirates to attack Quarian ships next to Citadel defense ships with no repercussions."

The reaction that the two humans showed was a combination of shock, and anger. Even the UNSC wouldn't attack any Covenant ship for what they had done, though many would like too, because they had acknowledged their mistake and had been the main driving force behind the end of the UNSC-Covenant war.

"What do they gain out of it?" asked Pressly, "Wouldn't it make more sense to instead ask for any help you could provide."

"That is the official position," she said, "I was only on that colony as an researcher."

"And because of that you no longer care about what happens to them?" asked Anderson.

"I do," she said, "But I'm not going to get in your way, especially if you really are going after the Geth dreadnought"

"Yes, dreadnought," added Pressly.

"What is it, my turn?" asked Tali, "What kind of forces did you bring? If you intend to attack the Geth fleet a rather substantial fleet would be required."

She noticed that both of the people in the room paused at her question.

"It's just us," admitted Anderson, "We didn't come here to fight a war."

"One ship! You want to attack the Geth with one ship!" she almost yelled.

"On the contrary, we only wish to remove the dreadnought," explained Pressly, "And we are quite confident that we can do that."

"What makes you so confident?" she asked.

"The ship we are currently in is a more advanced version of the ship we are now hunting," said Anderson, "So the problem isn't destroying it, it's finding it."

The implications of such a thing wasn't lost on her. Not only did they have a ship that could wipe out entire planets, but it wasn't even their most powerful ship.

"Tell me," she asked, "How much do you know about my people?"

"Quite a bit from what we can tell," said Anderson, "They built the Geth a few hundred years, had them rebel against your people only to leave you wandering through space on a large number of space ships."

"Did you see why we travel space? Why we don't just pick a new planet to live on?" she questioned.

"Everything we saw seemed to assume everyone knew," he said, shrugging, "We assumed that it's because of the laws put in place by this 'Council'."

"No," she said simply, "Our species as a whole lacks an effective immune system. Any attempt to colonize alien planets would result in a mass epidemic as any kind of local bacteria."

"And why are you telling us this?" asked Anderson.

"It's quite simple," she started, "I'm offering you my assistance in exchange for help for my people."

"That's a lot to ask for," said Pressly, crossing his arms in front of him, "What exactly do you have to offer us?"

"I can get a small group of your people into the citadel," she said, "Along with provide my technical assistance with dealing with the Geth."

"And how can you do that?" Anderson asked.

"Security on the Citadel is, quite honestly, pathetic," she explained, "Due to a large number of armed criminals being on the Citadel they will only rarely confiscate weapons. As long as you don't do anything suspicious then they will leave you alone."

"Suspicious…" began Pressly, "You mean like being an alien?"

"I have a way to get around that," she said, "My ship is on the planet, onboard I have enough spare environmental suit parts to make one or two more suits. Using them I could bring a couple of people onboard the Citadel without being caught."

"And you would being willing to help us just for the chance of us helping your people?" asked Anderson.

"I would go to the ends of the universe for a chance at helping my people," she replied.

"Give us a day to confirm what you said," said Anderson, getting up, "Then we can look into it."

…

The Incursion: Bridge Five Minutes Later

"Well Asya?" asked Anderson, "Would it work?"

Both he and Pressly had returned to the bridge so they could to speak with Asya. They had decided previously to avoid anything related to the AI

"It might," she replied, "From what I'm seeing all their defences are built to stop synthetics from getting in. As long as you aren't Geth they don't seem to care."

"And as long as they think we are Geth we can maintain the element of surprise," added Pressly, "But would she really help us?"

"She is telling the truth, her people simply can't colonize a new planet," said Asya.

"But could we do anything about it?" asked Pressly, "She seems to be under the impression that we could solve their problems, but we are hardly in any position to provide these people with assistance."

"Well, our problem isn't the resources themselves," explained Asya, "It's moving it from planet to planet. We lost a lot of ships during the war, and they seem to be a race that lives on thousands of ships. We could help each other here."

"We can keep that in mind," said Anderson, "But for now we need to decide, do we go with her plan?"

"I say yes," Pressly said, "If only for a chance at getting a third ship."

"Everything I'm seeing on these Quarians says that they put the 'Flotilla's, as it's called, wellbeing's first," said Asya, "So if she really believes that we can help her people then odd's are she would help us."

"And curing her 'incurable' disease probably made her think so," said Anderson, sighing, "Fine, prep the ship for a slipspace jump, bring us back to the last planet. Even if she plans on selling us out she couldn't we got to the Citadel, so we have that long to figure out if she's going to betray us."

"Maybe the ship in the hold has a record of the security protocols for the Citadel," said Pressly.

"I'll start searching through the files onboard," said Asya, "Approximately seven hours until we enter the system."

"Good, I can finally get some sleep," said Anderson, walking away.

…

The Incursion: Crew Quarters 89

Due to the fact that Tali was no longer infected, or ill in anyway, she was no longer in the medical bay. Instead she was moved to one of the available crew quarters. Though guards were still posted outside of the room.

'Finally, this firewall should keep it out,' having nothing to do Tali had decided to work on making her Omni-Tool 'AI proof', but every time she thought she had finally secured it the AI 'Pinged' her Omni-Tool to prove that it still had access.

It wasn't the AI that was bothering her, it was the Captain of the ship.

'He would make a good politician,' she thought, 'I only asked one real question and the answer I get only brings more questions, while at the same time he completely distracted me from getting any real answers. And worse, I fell for it.'

Laying back in the bed Tali looked around the room. It wasn't big, maybe ten feet long and eight feet wide, but she was more then used to living in small areas from growing up on the flotilla. There was also small desk in the corner with, from what she could tell, a computer built into it.

'Though anything I did on it would be tracked by that AI,' she though bitterly, only to be distracted by a small beep emanating from her Omni-Tool, 'You have got to be kidding me…'

Bring her Omni-Tool back she looked to see that she had a new message. Opening it she quickly read the message, pausing for a second before shutting down her Omni-Tool completely.

'Fifteen whole seconds,' she thought, beginning to fall asleep, 'Better then last time at least.'

…

The Incursion: Main Cargo Hold

"OK, just sever the final bar and we can get that out of there!" yelled the head technician.

"You sure that's a good idea?" yelled Kaidan, "What if it explodes or something?"

"It's not going to explode, we already shut it down and unhooked everything," replied the technician, "So just cut the beam."

"Fine, whatever," he said as he brought the welding mask back down over his face, "If anything goes wrong I'm blaming you!"

"That's great," he yelled back, "Just do your job!"

"My job is killing things," Kaidan yelled, "So be careful what you wish for!"

"Talk less, cut more!" he yelled.

"Just get the lift ready," he said, as he finished cutting the metal bar and began tying a rope onto the now severed bar.

"Everything's in place already," yelled the technician, "So just get out of there!"

Not bothering to respond Kaidan moved off to the side towards the makeshift latter they had constructed and began climbing out of the ship, or what was left of it. A large majority of the ships advance components had already been salvaged and catalogued for later study. All that was left was the metal 'shell' of the ship.

Reaching the top of the ship Kaidan simply slid down the side ship to the ground.

"I'm out," he yelled, "Start it up!"

Seconds after he said it the 'crane' installed in the roof the cargo hold began lifting the object up and out of the ship.

"So that's the heart of the ship?" he asked.

"It's hooked up to every major system onboard and is composed of elements that we have never seen," replied the technician, walking over to him, "This thing seems to be the key to the entire ship, whatever it is."

"Now what then?" asked Kaidan.

"We finish ripping this thing apart," he replied, "Even the armor is giving us some odd readings."

"Fine," Kaidan said, "I'll get back to cutting."

…

The Incursion: Bridge Twelve Hours Later

Entering the bridge Anderson looked around to see only a skeleton crew currently manning the ship. It was to be expected given the fact that they had been in system for over, by his estimates, three hours without any commotion. Anderson moved over to take his normal position by the holotable.

"Have a good sleep captain?" asked Asya.

"First full night in days," he replied.

"It is currently two in the morning on Earth," she said, "So it wasn't exactly a night."

"It's all the same in space," he said, "What kind of traffic are we looking at around the planet?"

"Minimal at best," she said, "It appears that they have mostly abandoned the colony after out last visit. There is, however, a large amount of ships currently holding position around the 'Relay' that we arrived from."

"Waiting for more to come through or waiting to go?" Anderson asked.

"The positions seem purely defensive," she replied, "And even if they tried it wouldn't do them much good."

"Bring us around the planets moon," said Anderson, "We still have a few more days until the ground teams ready for any operation."

"Stealth systems online and approaching the moon in orbit of the planet," she said, crossing her 'arms', "Time for another long wait."

"Assist the technicians as best you can," he said, taking a seat near the front of the bridge, "And open the shutters."

…

The Incursion: 'Tali's' Quarters

Once again Tali let her arm drop, dissipating her Omni-Tool, as she gave up attempting to 'AI Proof' it. Having spent the better part of three days in her quarters working on it she had finally decided that it was an impossible task,

'Now what?' she thought.

She hadn't exactly been confined to her quarters but she hadn't been granted access to any room aside from the mess hall.

"Damage control teams to the main cargo hold!" came a voice over the intercom, "Repeat, damage control teams to the main cargo hold!"

Getting up from the bed Tali quickly moved towards the door leaning up against it.

'Now's my chance!' she thought, 'If the guard moves I might have a few minutes to actually look around.'

This thought was quickly cut off as the door slid open causing her to fall to the ground beyond the door.

"Ma'am," the guard said, his face hidden behind a his helmet, "I have orders to bring you to the cargo hold, please follow me."

Immediately the guard began running down the hall. Taking this as a sign it truly was an emergency Tali began to run after him.

"What's going on!" she practically yelled to the guard ahead of her.

"From what we can tell," he began, "The main power core of the ship we had in the cargo hold began destabilising once we removed it from the ships hull. Approximately five minutes ago the core containment field failed and it began to create gravimetric distortions in the immediate proximity."

"Element zero?" asked Tali, not really expecting an answer. She could tell from the way that he spoke that he was just repeating what was said to him.

"We were hoping you would know," he said, stopping near a large door, "Inside quickly, if you will."

Continuing through the open door Tali immediately saw the problem.

"Thank god you're here!" yelled one of the men running around the room as he put on a headset, "This things going to blow so any help would be great!"

Running into the room Tali saw a small element core in the middle of the room and began to move towards it as she brought up her Omni-Tool.

"I saw you on the planet!" she yelled, "Weren't you a solider?"

"The names Kaidan!" he replied, "And it's complicated, I'll explain after the immediate threat of disintegration passes."

"The core is in an advanced stage of destabilization," she explained, tapping furiously on her Omni-Tool, "How long has it been un-powered?"

"We took it out three days ago," he answered.

"Three days?" she yelled in disbelief.

"Ya…" he replied, rubbing the back of his head, "So how do we fix it?"

"We need to route at least fifty gigawatts of electricity through the external layer to stabilize the containment," she explained, continuing to work on her Omni-Tool tool, "Can your power grid support that amount?"

"The things built for multiple terawatts," he explained, "Try to keep it stable while I hook up higher gauge cables!"

"I'm not sure how long I can do that!" she yelled, her point being reinforced as the floor began to bend beneath them, "At most five minutes!"

"I can work with that!" he yelled, running off to the side.

"I meant five minutes until the core goes critical!" she explained, "We'll all be dead long before that!"

The core itself shook violently as large fields of gravitons formed and dissipated randomly cracking the shell that contained the dark matter, causing grater gravitation formation and further cracking.

Kaidan moved towards the wall of the cargo hold and opened the closest panel to him and took hold of a cable six inches across and began pulling it out of the wall.

"The only cable that runs that amount of power in reach is the one connected to the gravity panel!" yelled Kaidan, "Once I cut this that's it for gravity!"

"Gravity panel?" asked Tali, intrigued at the concept, "Never mind just hook it up!"

"Get ready for no gravity!", he said as he cut the cable.

The effect was immediate as everyone and everything in the room began to float off the ground. Grabbing the panel in front of him he used it as leverage to position himself in place before pushing off. Only to see the generator float away from him.

"Uh…" he began.

"Hold on," she said, before walking over and pushing the generator back towards him, looking at him at the same time, "No magnetic boots?"

"I wish," he said, continuing to float over to the generator, "How do I hook this up?"

"Just attach the cable directly to the shell," she said, "I just need enough raw energy to return basic containment."

Not wasting any time Kaidan simply shoved the exposed end of the wire onto the shell of the core.

"The cores external graviton field is active!" called Tali, "But the inner core is too far gone! We have to get it off the ship!"

"Damn it! Anyone without a pressure suit should clear the deck now!" he said as he pulled his welding mask into place.

A standard UNSC repair suit was technically airtight as long as some sort of headgear was in place. But with no secondary air supply in place it was really just a show for workers working in areas where decompression is likely to occur.

"This is Kaidan to the bridge," he said, knowing Asya would be monitoring all communications, "Containment is no longer possible we need to vent the object to space!"

"Grab on to something," replied Asya, oddly calm, "Without time to depressurize the area the vacuum will pull the contents of the room out with force."

Not bothering to reply Kaidan grabbed onto the closest thing to him that was anchored to the ship. The live electrical cable that he had brought over with him. Less then a second later secondary doors closed isolating the rear of the cargo hold from the other ship and the entire floor began to lower, opening the area to space.

With the hold still compressed the 'vacuum' of space worked like an actual vacuum. As the air began to move to the area of lesser concentration it pulled anything in the area with it. No sooner then it had began did a crew man who was holding onto the railing get ripped off and flung downwards towards space.

Not missing a beat Kaidan simultaneously wrapped his arm around the cable he was holding well extending his other hand towards the helpless crew member grabbing him on the neck of his suit.

As quickly as it began everything stopped as the last of the air was removed from the compartment. Looking outside the ship he could easily see the core float away from the ship right up until the point when it ripped itself to pieces.

"Close it now Asya," said Kaidan, "I could use some new air."

At his command the entire floor began to rise upwards bringing back an airtight seal as the compartment began to flood with oxygen.

"Thanks for the save," said the man whom Kaidan was holding, "That wouldn't have turned out well."

"Yeah, no problem," he replied, taking off his welding mask, "At least we aren't all dead. Thanks for you help by the way."

"I'm on the ship too," she said, "But why did you leave an element zero core un-powered for so long?"

"Element zero?" he asked.

"You don't know what element zero is?" she asked in disbelief.

"Nope, science isn't my forte," Kaidan said, shrugging, "Anyway I have to start cleaning up here, go find one of the engineers if you want to explain that. I need to go fix the gravity."

Looking around Tali noticed that everything still in the area was in fact floating away.

"You'll have to explain how you can produce artificial gravity without using element zero," she said, "That kind of thing shouldn't be possible."

"You know what, forget what I said," Kaidan said as he began to manoeuvre towards the side panel, "What is element zero?"

"Element zero is…" she began.

…

The Incursion: Bridge Six Hours Later

"They use dark matter?" said Pressly, "As in honest to god Dark Matter!"

"Everything they have seems to be built around the manipulation of it," explained Asya, "If what she says is true it essentially allows them to alter physical laws in real space."

"How does it compare to what we have now?" asked Anderson, "And the covenant for that matter?"

"Pitiful when compared to the covenant, there is nothing they have that could be benefited by such a thing," she said, "But us on the other hand, it's simply staggering. If we had this kind of technology on our MAC weapons during the war then we could have won."

"How so?" asked Pressly.

"The entire technology focuses around the manipulation of mass, or weight, of objects," she explained, "We could theoretically use MAC rounds hundreds of times heavier then what we are using with no draw backs. Think of it like upgrading every MAC to a super MAC. And the super MAC's that could fire at faster then light speeds."

"Add acquiring element zero to our mission directives," said Anderson, "The war isn't completely over as it is."

"And what about the ground team?" asked Pressly, "Are we going to let them go down?"

"None of the ships around the planet are armed so there is no chance of an attack from the above," said Asya, "Any ground forces would be minimal as I can only find a dozen or so life signs."

"Send them down then," said Anderson, "We need the suits."

"Sending launch orders now," said Asya.

The Incursion: Main Hanger

"We have a green light!" said Joker, "Time to get out of here!"

"Finally!" yelled Shepard as he picked up his weapons.

"We have only been waiting for a few hours," Ashley said as she moved towards the pelican, "It's not like it was some substantial amount of time."

"No, but laying on some table for four days made a little restless," he replied, "That and the fact that I haven't seen the light of day in over a week."

"Get used to it," comment Tali, "Your in space."

"What ever space girl," he said dismissively as he got into the back of the pelican, "Are you coming or not?"

"Space girl?" she asked climbing into the pelican, "Is that supposed to be an insult?"

"What? No not at all," he said, "Your a girl, in space, so your a space girl."

"You really don't get it Shepard," Ashley said, sighing, "Take us down Joker."

"I just need a place," he said, "So where is it space girl?"

"Magnetic north side of the city," she said sighing, "And don't call me space girl, my name is Tali."

"Sure thing space girl," he replied, "Joker to bridge, we are taking off."

"Roger that ground team," Asya said, "Fly safe."

It was decided to deploy to the ground in a Pelican class dropship instead of the 'normal' method, a drop pod, because the aforementioned drop pods were limited in number.

"This is the captain speaking," Joker said over the pelicans intercom, "If you look to your left you can see some stars, and if you look to the right you can see some more stars."

"There are windows back here Joker," said Ashley, "So shut up and fly the ship."

"Snippy one aren't you," he replied, "Fine, ETA five minutes."

…

Unknown Planet: Magnetic North of the City

The tension in the Pelican was thick, yet only known to the UNSC personnel, as they were the only ones who knew the true fate of the planet. It was unknown how Tali would react upon seeing the now dead city.

"This is the first, last and only stop everyone," said Joker, "I'll hang around for an hour or two in case you don't find it."

"Why wouldn't we find it?" asked Tali, "And how did you land in the city? Wouldn't people have seen you?"

All the occupant's of the craft were silent as the door off the pelican opened revelling the city, or the remains of it at least. It was dusk at the time with both of the suns setting in the south.

"Wha…" started Tali, "What happened?"

All around them was crushed glass and concrete from the now destroyed building littering the area.

"Our method of FTL…" began Ashley, "If it's any help, it's not known to kill people."

"It destroys everything!" she yelled, "Why would you use something like that!"

"We don't jump in gravity wells," explains Shepard, "This was an emergency."

"That doesn't change what happened!" she said, "You could have killed dozens!"

"We didn't want to!" yelled Shepard, "You attacked us! For all we knew your people were trying to kill us all because we offend your gods!"

"Why would you think that!" she yelled, "Not everything is out to kill you lot!"

"You have no idea what your talking about," said Ashley, solemnly, "We know it was a mistake and we are trying to make it right."

"I'll help for now," she said after a brief pause, "If only to stop you from killing more people."

"That's all we can ask for I guess," Shepard said, shrugging, "Lead the way."

Slowly Tali began to walk forward heading towards the largest building in the area, or at least was the largest building in the area.

"Landing site?" asked Shepard.

"Dry dock," she replied, "It should have kept my ship safe."

"Joker," began Ashley, "Sounds like the ship's intact so you can clear out."

"Got it," Joker replied, "See you back on the ship."

The next twenty minutes were spent walking in silence as all three people surveyed the area. It was odd to see a city in such ruins with not a body in sight.

"It looks like there are few dead at least," said Tali, "Well, we're here."

In front of the three of them was a large metal building, easily a square kilometre in area and hundreds of meters high.

"Why would you put a dry dock on the ground?" asked Ashley, "Wouldn't it make more sense to have it in space?"

"The element zero allows us to land on the planet as easily as docking in space," she explained, "So it's really only down here to make it easier for the ground crew."

"For my people…," Tali muttered, walking through a hole formed in the wall, "Let's get out of here."

The building was full of ships, nearly thirty by Shepard's count, but Tali immediately picked out hers and began walking towards it, only to have it react to her presence and begin to power up and open the rear hatch.

"How big is it?" asked Ashley.

"Seventy five meters," she replied as she began walking into the ship, "Standard medium class frigate size."

"You have multiple classes within the frigate branch?" asked Shepard following her into the ship, "Wouldn't that get confusing?"

"In ship to ship combat the size difference is very insignificant," she explained as she walked deeper into the ship and onto the bridge, "The extra size is mostly used for extra personnel or equipment. If the ship is tactically superior then its is classified higher, regardless of the size."

"Can you get us to the Incursion?" asked Shepard, "And can you keep your weapons off while you do it?"

"The ship is intact so it shouldn't be hard," she replied, taking a seat near the front of the bridge, "Though ground control is out so I'll need to power up the shields to get us out."

"That's fine," Ashley said, taking a seat off to the side, "Just get us out of here."

"Already half way there," she said.

"What?" asked Shepard, "I didn't feel a thing."

"Mass effect technology," she said, "It doesn't reduce the feeling of inertia, it removes it completely."

"That's very interesting," began Shepard, "But I'm going to go look around if that's okay."

"If you must," she said, "The trip wont take long."

"Oh I must," he said, raising his gun as he walked away, "This wont take long either."

…

The Incursion: Bridge Five Minutes Later

"The alien ship is onboard Captain," said Asya, "What are your orders?"

"Take us into slipspace," command Anderson, "Get us to this 'Citadel'."

"It's going to take a trip through a relay," she said, "Or four."

"Are you sure you know how they work?" asked Pressly, "We don't want a repeat of last time."

"Oh I'm sure," she replied, "I'm not going to go through that again."

"Then take us away," said Anderson, "And don't get us shot at."

…

Authors Note

I hate myself, I really do. I'm up at 12 at night, with the first day back at school TOMORROW, trying to finish this chapter.

As for the delay, let it be known that I have caught 25 salmon, and the season isn't even over.

I'll have a better author's note done when I get off school, until then, enjoy your blood chapter.

ALSO, I don't know why, but the word count on works and on the website is different. The one on the website is nearly a 1k higher, duno why.

One reviewer asked how they managed to get into the atmosphere of the planet like 3 chapters back. Well the forward unto dawn already did the same thing in halo 3, not to mention the other three frigates who attempted to destroy truths ship were in atmosphere. So i figured that they just kinda could.

One thing everyone has to keep in mind: I have NEVER bought into the part in other stories were when everyone meets they immediately share their story's and history's. In mine, everyone is out to hide EVERYTHING, they WILL lie about their past if it furthers their own goals.

Quotation glitch: I lost the quotations during the conversion from the word processor my beta uses vs mine I think. It's kinda odd as the top beta remark was still there. Maybe it was just a general glitch?

Also kinetic barriers vs plasma: Here's how I see it. Plasma IS a thing, its matter that has had it's electrons striped from it, so it WOULD be stopped by the barrier. But the heat and other emissions, which are the REAL cause of the damage, would be unaffected. So in essence the barrier prevents the plasma from 'cutting' the ship and instead forces it to 'boil' the ship instead.

Tali's ship: Yes in mass effect she was desperate, looking for protection from fist, but in this she doesn't have information on Saren. In fact Saren doesn't exist yet, and might never. She was employed as a geth researcher for the citadel, sort of implied, so its a research frigate more then anything. As for it being armed, i never actually said it was, Shepard only assumed that it was armed. Basically it's not 'her' frigate, it's part of the citadel fleet, she was just stationed on it, but she would have no problem with 'borrowing' it in an attempt to save her people.

Next Chapter Title: The Citadel

Got back to writing, finally, next chapters at four thousand words right now and I'm not even close to half way, though its a long week end so I'm finalizing this release date. 24/10/2010 It will be out this day, even if I have to forgo sleep.


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